Roundup Day
by Sevenstars
Summary: It's late fall, and Laramie's cattlemen have just enjoyed a very profitable season. But as the town prepares to celebrate the end of the "fall work," the vultures are already gathering.


**Roundup Day**

_by Sevenstars_

SUMMARY: Laramie celebrates the fall roundup and the shipping of its cattle, but as itinerant entertainers flock to the town, not all of them are what they seem. Takes place during Third Season (Daisy and Mike's first fall at Sherman Ranch).

Many thanks (as always) to my good pard Gloria for beta.

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"C'mon, Daisy, we're gonna miss half the fun!" Jess Harper shouted.

"Yeah, Aunt Daisy, hurry up!" Mike looked up at his dark-haired hero. "Jess, how come ladies always gotta take so much time gettin' ready for things?"

Jess sighed dramatically and shook his head. "Tiger, if I knew the answer to that one, I could get rich sellin' the information," he said.

Slim hid his smile at the antics of his best friend and their young ward. In some ways Mike and Jess were exactly the same age, though what age that was varied according to the circumstances.

"Daisy, are you comin' or do we gotta leave without you?" Jess hollered, getting really impatient now. Slim saw that he had his silver-plated watch out of his pocket and the lid open. Mike's dog Buttons, sitting beside his master in the back of the buckboard, added his own opinion in a series of sharp barks.

"Goodness," came Daisy Cooper's voice from inside the house, becoming progressively louder and more distinct as she got nearer the kitchen door, "anyone would think the two of you had been raised by wolves, not by human mothers! Why don't you take a lesson from Slim?" she added as she stepped out into the October sunlight and pulled the door to behind her. _"He_ understands how important it is for a woman to look her best at these times."

"Daisy, you look just fine to us any time," Jess told her, Southern courtesy automatically responding to her tone, as he handed her up onto the buckboard seat, then swung up after her.

"Why, Jess, I know that," she replied, exaggeratedly large-eyed with surprise that he could have so thoroughly missed the point. "But it isn't you I was dressing for—it was all those hundreds of people who are going to be in Laramie today. You told me yourself it's the biggest blowout of the year."

"Sure I did, and it is," Jess agreed, shaking out the reins. "Hup there! Jimmy! Rusty! Git on, boys!"

"Well, then," said Daisy, "there you are. Women always want to make a good impression at a big blowout. So do men, or you wouldn't be so nicely dressed now," she added. Jess was wearing his good navy-blue shield-front shirt, the one he'd bought in Rawlings after the holdup last year, with a big red-and-yellow silk bandanna side-knotted at his throat, and iron-gray woollen pants tucked into his Sunday boots with the silver heel- and toe-caps. He'd replaced his usual silver-cockled hatband with one of solid silver, and even brushed the alkali off the hat. His sheepskin-lined jacket kept the morning chill at bay, but it hung open, and his tan canvas bobtail brush jacket—the same one he'd been wearing the day he first rode into Slim's life, and changed it forever—was tucked under the buckboard seat for possible later use; the mercury had gotten down below freezing overnight, as it commonly did at this time of year, but the warm mid-autumn sun had already brought the temperature up a good ten degrees since sunrise, and there was a chance it would hit sixty by midafternoon, even though the occasional breaths of breeze off the mountains brought the clean, fresh scent of snow with them. Slim had exchanged his usual brown shirt for a light green one, his everyday soft-brown Stetson for his best black one with the silver band; like Jess, he wore an open jacket against the early cool and was equipped with a lighter weight one, rolled and tied behind his saddle cantle, in case of need. As for Daisy, her "boys" weren't really surprised that she should have chosen her second-best black silk with the Valenciennes lace, or even her pearl-gray kid gloves and autumn-toned broché shawl, but what had taken her the longest time was to decide on a hat; not that the one she was wearing was all that remarkable, just a small round black one with a long black plume—which, at least to Jess and Mike, made the delay all the more incomprehensible.

Mike sat facing backwards at the tailgate, proudly lifting a foot now and then to look at his burnished half-boots; with those and his miniature black cowboy hat—deliberately styled in imitation of Jess's—he figured he was in a fair way to look like a proper range man. Beside him, with a rope leash around his neck to keep him from jumping out, sat Buttons, alert and eager—he didn't get to ride in the buckboard very often, so he knew something was up—and a bit farther back, kneeling with legs folded, his fawn Twink, also leashed by way of a length of clothesline knotted to the leather collar Jess had braided for her. They were to be his entries in the pet competition. The rest of the bed was filled with a leather satchel holding Slim's and Jess's best clothes (to be donned for the dance tonight), a couple of picnic baskets, and an assortment of mysterious crates. Old Ben, left in charge of the day's team changes, waved from the barn door as Jess headed the team out along the Laramie road, pushing them into a collected lope, a slightly slower version of the stagecoach horses' usual moderate gallop, that would bring the buckboard into town in about ninety minutes rather than its usual two hours. Slim followed at an easy jogging pace, with Jess's Traveller on a lead behind Alamo, resting up for the cowpony race that was a regular feature of today's celebration—a sort of range hybrid of town fair and rodeo. For the crew that had driven the basin's saleable cattle to the rails at Cheyenne had come home only five days before, the market had been good, and a celebration was required.

Apart from the annual Sunday Shoot, which was somewhat specialized, Laramie held three major gatherings during the "high season": a dance and rodeo in mid-April, just before the spring roundup commenced; the inevitable Fourth of July observation; and this October frolic, usually known as Roundup Day, which marked the close of the "fall work." From now on things would start slowing down, as stock was moved to sheltered ranges (if it hadn't already been), ranchers let cowboys go for the winter, and people stocked up on supplies and winterized their buildings to be ready for the first snow, which could be expected to fall on the flat any time after the first of November. In a bad year the weather thereafter could keep most folks pretty much housebound till April, so Roundup Day might well be the last chance the community would have in several months for a good get-together. Hence it was, as Jess had told Daisy many weeks ago, "the biggest blowout of the year."

The weather, at least, was co-operating, and not only as far as temperature went: the sky was the incomparable blue that is seen only in the mountain country in the summer and the first half of fall, with hardly a cloud in it, and the few there were scudding gently along in a wind the creatures of earth couldn't feel. The fall color was just at its fullest glory: balsam poplars gold and buckskin-yellow, wild plum orange and yellow, dogwood brilliant crimson and orange, with red berries that the birds were quarrelling over. Along the streams, the thickets of currant, chokecherry, and wild gooseberry were amber and gold, studded with the scarlet haws of the wild rose, and overarched with fountaining willows, light yellow, golden, and russet-brown, and cottonwoods golden and butter-yellow, a few beginning to fade to brown-yellow. In among the somber green belts of conifers on the flanks of the mountains the aspens glowed, ranging from orange and red to faded gold, bright yellow, and bright ocher spattered with crimson. Most of the flowers were over, but the asters, black-eyed Susans, and feathery goldenrod hung on. Overhead passed skeins of migratory birds, their cries a faint bugle-music.

The buckboard crossed the low ridge that marked the northwest rim of the little valley where the ranch buildings sat, then descended the shallow slope to Stone Creek, the horses splashing through the floating rotten ice that had formed a thin skin over the water during the night. It passed the McCaskeys' gate—with no sign of the McCaskeys; probably, Jess thought sourly, they'd been out and gone an hour ago, Miz McCaskey having but two good hats, one straw for the warm weather and the other velvet for winter, which she wore on all occasions of ceremony—and picked up the Laramie road. Half an hour out of the ranch yard, Jess maneuvered the team over to one side to let the morning stage, due at Sherman's at eight o'clock, get past them. He checked his watch again and relaxed a bit; they were making good time. The land rose slightly as they entered the dry belt just east of the town, the road hugging a rocky, sagebrush-studded lift of land on one side and dropping away to a deep gully on the other. More wagons and buckboards, even a buggy or two, came into view, descending the long trails that led off to the smaller ranches higher up on the slopes, hurrying toward Laramie. There were no trees along here, but they were beginning to pass signboards bearing gorgeous showbills, heavy with red and gold and centered with a sprawling, crowded lithograph of lion tamers, liberty horses, trapeze artists, wire-walkers, clowns, elephants, and acrobats:

_Merrill & McCallum's_

_Great Olympic Arena & United States Circus_

_74 Carriages & Wagons – 70 Performing Horses – 14 Musicians – 60 Performers_

_Menagerie at No Extra Cost!_

_Sideshow, 15c – Children 5c._

_Two Days Only!_

_Performances at 2 and 7 PM_

_Admission, 50c. - Children 25c._

And pasted on underneath, a smaller, extra banner that read:

_One Day Only at This Location!_

_The Amazing Wizard Murdine, Professor of Applied Aeronautics_

_Making His Famous Free Balloon Ascent_

_to the Incredible Height of Three Miles Above the Surface of the Earth!_

_And Featuring the Acrobatics of Miss Adrielle Murdine His Daughter_

_Who Will Conclude Her Performance_

_With the Death-Defying Parachute Leap!_

_4:30 P.M., Barrett's Pasture - Admission 10c. Extra for All Ages_

"That's new," Slim observed, leaning in from his saddle so Jess could hear him over the brisk rattle of the harness and running gear.

"Yeah, I was thinkin'," his friend agreed.

Mike scrambled forward on his knees, avoiding the cargo with some difficulty, to lean over the back of the seat. "Can we go and see it? Can we, Slim? Aunt Daisy, can we?" Daisy had taken him to one circus—his first ever—just before the school year began, but it hadn't featured a balloon. He knew what balloons were—Slim had told him about the tethered ones used in the war by Dr. Thaddeus Lowe to spy out enemy artillery emplacements—but he'd never seen one outside the illustrations in a book.

"I don't know, Mike," Daisy replied doubtfully. "It will depend on when they have the judging for the pet competition—you'll want to be there, won't you?"

The boy looked back at his pets. Buttons, of course, was a dog and liked 'most anyone who didn't act sneaky, but Twink was kind of shy, as deer should be, and might not let herself be handled and properly judged if he wasn't there to steady her. "I guess so. But I sure would like to see it, just the same."

"We'll see, Mike," Slim promised, and the boy relaxed a little: Slim was the head of this family, and where permissions were concerned his word was law.

The road was dropping down now into the belt of lodgepole and ponderosa pine and white and subalpine fir that delineated the town limits, angling and twisting slightly as it descended, until suddenly it opened out onto Laramie's Front Street. To the left and back a bit, the land rose in a series of low natural terraces, with buildings, chiefly log, set wherever there was space enough to hold them—the school, the boarding house, a doctor's combination home/office, and others, with little flights of split-log steps winding up to them; to the right, it spread more level, with a gentle slope downstreet, the half-log livery barn being the first commercial building. A banner hung across the street, bright with autumnal colors:

_WELCOME – FOURTH ANNUAL LARAMIE ROUNDUP DAY – WELCOME_

Down beyond the last of the commercial buildings, tents blossomed on either side of the street. To the left, two big dun-colored ones for fair entrants, local people with handicrafts, cookery, and livestock to display; to the right, an oblong one of alternate red and white sections, with pennants flying from its poles and several smaller tops crowded about it, the whole surrounded by a rickety high fence. Jess checked the team, eyeing the swarm of riders, pedestrians, and vehicles that already jammed the broad thoroughfare. "Wha'd'you think, pard?" he asked.

"I think the first thing is to get all this stuff of Daisy's down to the ladies' pavilion," Slim replied. "We sure don't want to be carryin' it ourselves."

"No-o-o... no, I reckon not," Jess agreed, remembering the weight of the crates. "A'right, we'll do that first, and then we can bring the buckboard and the horses back here and leave 'em in Dennison's feed lot. _Hup,_ boys!" and he snapped the reins.

As they'd been for the Fourth, Laramie's buildings were decorated for the festival, but the motif was fall colors rather than patriotic red-white-and-blue: streamers and banners of, mostly, sturdy home-dyed cotton, in golds and browns, reds and yellows and oranges, rosy and yellowish tan, beige, soft rust, garnet, purple, with ears of Indian corn and bunches of paper leaves tacked up wherever space offered. At regular intervals handbills were nailed to posts and front walls, giving the schedule of events. Roundup Day was a two-day festival, and everyone who possibly could attended both days. People came sixty to a hundred miles for it, with tents and bedrolls in the backs of their buckboards and wagons, staying overnight at houses when they came on one en route, sleeping out when they didn't. Anyone in town or within an hour or two's drive of it who had a room or two to offer, for rent or free of charge, had had claim laid to it over a month ago, by people who lived too far out to get home overnight in between, while cowhands—some of whom had ridden twice as far—came prepared to bed down in lofts or anyplace else off the main street where they could find space to spread their blankets. Though it was early—barely eight-thirty A.M.—the saloons were already open, and so were the café and the hotel dining room, but everything else was closed to permit business owners, their employees and their families to enjoy the doings too.

Sheriff Mort Corey, a double shotgun tucked under his arm, waved from the boardwalk's edge and stepped down to hail the Sherman Ranch family as Jess pulled the team up. "Morning, Mrs. Cooper," he said politely, touching his hat. "Mike— Morning, boys."

"Kind of early to be fetchin' out the heavy artillery, ain't it, Mort?" Jess asked, eyeing the shotgun.

"Maybe," the lawman allowed. "Maybe not. You can see yourself the drinking's started already. Not that I figure anybody who takes on enough of a load to be trouble will remember seeing it, but still—" He squinted up at the two men he trusted beyond anyone else in his county. "You fellers sure you don't want to be deputized?"

Slim smiled and shook his head. "Sorry, Mort. Not this time. Today we're just a couple of hard-workin' ranchers in to celebrate the end of the fall work and a good year for beef and beef prices." Back in August the market quote had been $20 a head, but it varied from week to week, even day to day, and by the time the drive reached Cheyenne it had climbed to $25. That meant that the eighty head of Sherman cattle included in the herd had brought in a tidy $2000, a better per-head price even than last year when Jess had made the great deal on his own. And with the mortgage finally retired at the bank, that was going to mean an especially good Christmas. For the first time since he'd come home from the war, Slim finally felt that he'd turned the corner, that he might make a go of the place, might really be able to carry on his father's dream for it—thanks largely, of course, to the stage-line money every month and to Jess.

"Well," Corey sighed, "I guess I can't make you. What are you planning on for today?"

"Daisy's got a lot of stuff to enter in the ladies' competitions," Slim told him— "we're not really sure what all of it is, except that it weighs like cannonballs. And Mike's puttin' Buttons and Twink up for the pet prize. Jess and Traveller are gonna run in the cowpony race, like always, and I'll try my hand at the roping contest. Apart from that, we figure on seein' the circus, though it'll have to be the afternoon show so Daisy can get Mike home by bedtime; Jess and I 'll stay on for the dance, of course."

"And the balloon!" cried Mike shrilly. "Don't forget the balloon, Slim!"

"Yeah, the balloon, maybe," the rancher agreed. "Did you know that was on the slate, Mort?"

"Yeah, they had to convince me and the Town Council that the fool thing wasn't likely to blow up or somethin'," Corey said. "Not that we haven't had the calliope with the circus every year since it started coming through, and that's just as likely to do it, but this balloon, from what they tell me, uses some kind of gas generator."

"Hydrogen?" Slim guessed. "Lowe went to that pretty early on in the war, I remember. His first balloons were inflated with coal gas from city services and then walked out to the battlefield, but it wasn't real efficient because they had to be taken back every four days and refilled. So he worked out a way to use gas generators, a compact system of tanks and copper plumbing that convert a combination of iron filings and sulfuric acid to hydrogen. They were easy to transport with the uninflated balloon on a standard buckboard, and that made the whole thing a lot simpler. I'd guess if this Professor Murdine travels with the circus, he'd want to use the same system for ease of transport."

"Yeah, hydrogen, that was it," the lawman agreed. "Says he could fly all the way across the country, if he got the right air currents. That's why he's only making one ascension; he figures as long as he's up he might just as well go ahead to the next stand the show's playing, and lay claim to the campground they've arranged for."

"Makes sense," Slim agreed. "Those things don't steer too well, so doublin' back might not be real practical. Well, we'd better get movin', Mort—Jess and I still have to see to the team and buckboard and sign ourselves up for the contests."

"Either of you planning on the rifle shoot?" Corey asked.

"We hadn't rightly made up our minds," Jess admitted. "How come you're askin', Mort?"

A twinkle appeared in the sheriff's serious brown eyes. "Because I saw Reed and Celie McCaskey getting Celie entered not five minutes ago."

Jess snorted. "Huh! I ain't a-scared of her. That was plumb luck, nothin' else."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Corey, not quite smiling. "Seemed to me she had you pretty well skunked, Jess. Tied you for three tries and won first prize in the end."

"Luck," Jess repeated. "She didn't beat my best shot by more'n half an inch. Wind was with her. We gotta go, Mort. Like Slim says, lots to do. Git up, Jimmy! Rusty!" And the buckboard lurched into motion.

Slim hung back a moment, checking Alamo as the chestnut tried to follow. "He'll be there, Mort, you watch and see," he said, grinning. "I don't know why it bothers him so much that Celie beat him, Fourth of July; he's told us about one girl he knew back in Texas who could outshoot him when it came to long guns, though a pistol was too heavy for her."

"Maybe 'cause that was somebody he'd known all his life," Corey guessed shrewdly, "plus they were only kids at the time. Celie's grown, even if she doesn't always behave as if she knew it. Or maybe it's that that was the second time she beat him, and he's not used to being beat. She won in the spring, too, remember."

"Could be," Slim acknowledged. "We'll be seein' you around, Mort."

One of the two dun-colored tents had a banner hung over its entrance that read _Floral Hall. _Jess pulled the buckboard up to it, backing and filling so the tailgate was as close as he could get it, and Slim sent Mike off to see if he could score a wheelbarrow.Within half an hour they had Daisy's crates inside, and, leaving Mike to help her set up and enter his pets at the livestock tent next door, took the buckboard back up the street. Out back of the livery barn was the feed corral, where people who didn't want to pay fifty cents a night for an indoor stall, or who didn't think they'd need their mounts in a hurry, could put them up for half as much, feed and grain included. This was a large yard with seven-foot rail fences and a low four-bar gate that locked, one side formed by a long, open-faced shed with a watering trough and pump, in which the equine guests could huddle in cold or rainy weather. The other side was delineated by a second shed holding rigs for sale and hire—half a dozen buggies, a couple of buckboards, some wagons, even a pony-cart. Beyond the back gate in turn was a ten-acre pasture, fenced but with its gate tied open, where an assortment of rigs was already parked for the day. After a moment's consultation, Slim and Jess drove their own in to join them, on the principle that someone might want to get the picnic baskets without having to bother the stableman for the corral key. With the easy, unthinking rhythm that had come to mark their style of working together, they unhitched the team, tied them to the tongue, stripped off the harness and piled it on top, and fastened the animals' nosebags in place so they could feed. Alamo and Traveller they tethered to the rear wheels, likewise grained, saddles removed and thrown into the back of the bed. A sheet of canvas thrown across the load and tied with one of Jess's complicated "Harper knots" completed the job, and they headed back out to the street.

Their first stop was to examine one of the schedule handbills. Edibles and pets, they discovered, were to be judged on the first day, so the former could be taken home before they spoiled and the latter to be fed; livestock and handicrafts on the second. The contests, as was usual, included not only roping, rifle-shooting, a cutting-horse match, and the cowpony race, all of them slated for today, but calf-tying (individual and team), steer-riding, bronc-riding, and a wild-horse race tomorrow, spread out in such a way that a man could enter the whole slate if he had the skills and endurance for them, besides a relay race by a group of Shoshoni women, which was a spectator event, though sure to be strenuously wagered on. There were no cash prizes except at the rifle shoot, but betting would certainly be lively, and merchandise had been donated by local businesses for the winners—a pair of spurs for the fastest time at steer roping, a saddle with an engraved brass plate on the cantle for the best bronc rider, and so on. Most of it was scheduled for the mornings and early afternoons so participants could attend the matinée at the circus. The dance, the capstone of the day, would begin at eight P.M., and probably go till dawn as cow-country dances usually did, so that those who preferred to wait for the evening circus performance could still attend most of it afterward. In deference to the cool weather, it was to be held in the meeting-room on the second floor of the firehouse, and would-be contestants at any of the competitions could sign up on the first.

Slim knew that Jess was just as eager to see the circus as Mike was: after his lonely and difficult boyhood, there was a big part of him—mostly kept hidden from all but those he loved and trusted most—that still yearned for the innocent fun he'd missed out on. "Well, the race is at eleven-thirty—earlier than I figured," he noted. "We'd better get you signed up for that, and the roping's at ten." He didn't say anything about the rifle shoot. He didn't figure he had to, especially as he'd caught sight of a familiar pair of figures just crossing the street behind them.

" 'Morning, Slim—Jess," came a voice, and they turned to greet their nearest neighbor, Reed McCaskey. His Tumbling R Block had its headquarters slightly less than five miles townward from their own, but was almost twice its size as to cattle. He was a hale and hearty man who looked twenty years younger than his actual seventy-three, and showed no sign of the fact that only this last winter he'd been laid up for six months after a stout young bronc fell with him, rolled on him, and gave him a good kick to boot. He saw a little further than most men, and trusted his vision, and worked like a laborer until it came true; he'd been the first man to bring cattle into the Laramie Basin, after stints as a mountain man, freighter, and contractor to the military of hay, grain, and firewood, and life lived close to Nature and to the bare bone for so long, having carried into primitive life the best that civilization gave in the way of ideals, had made all things harsh and discordant fall away from him. Frank and generous, masterful and strong, with control of hand and clarity of vision, he looked at life with serene tranquility, and in many ways reminded Slim of his own father, Matt Sherman; indeed the two had been close to an age, and good friends for as long as Matt had lived.

"Reed, good to see you," said Slim, shaking hands. "How are Lillian and the boys?"

"Doin' fine, and thanks for askin'," Reed replied. "They're all around here someplace, though the Lord knows where—boys get to the age some of mine are, it gets kind of hard to keep track of 'em. Well, Jess, you figure on ridin' that bay of yours in the race today? You might want to watch yourself, my Joe's got a new chestnut sorrel he aims to enter."

"He can have his chance, Reed, same as anybody else," said Jess, "but it'll have to be a pretty good horse to beat Trav and me; you know that." Out of the seven spring- and fall-roundup and Independence Day horseraces he'd entered the bay in since he'd come to Sherman Ranch—today's would be the eighth—he'd won all but one, and it was mostly the quest to beat him, now, that kept others signing up.

He studiously ignored Reed's companion, but the feeling wasn't mutual, for his comment drew an inelegant snort. "You give my little brother a half decent horse and he'll whip you seven ways from Sunday, Jess Harper, same as I did Fourth of July."

"That was wind," he retorted. "You beat me by half an inch, Celie, and I don't call that no 'seven ways,' either."

Celia McCaskey, more generally known as Celie, was at twenty-one the youngest, and her father's favorite, of an active and able-bodied team of four daughters. They were all older than their five brothers, and when Reed was still struggling to get his herd built and couldn't afford a lot of hired help, much of the work had fallen on them. During tight financial times they had even set traps and sold their furs and hides to help support the family. With the practicality of a former mountain man who had seen the physical strength of Indian women, Reed had been convinced from the day the first of them was born that they could be taught to do just about anything a man could. Indeed he always said women were better than men at handling cattle, and could be just as good with horses. His own girls were his best hands: from the age of nine until they married and started helping to run their own ranches, the three oldest had mended fence, stretched and branded stock, and broken wild horses, dressed in cowboy hats and shin- or ankle-length divided skirts—all of which things Celie was still doing. They rode horseback all over his land, looking for stray calves hiding in creek beds, patrolling his boundaries and fence lines, and counting the cattle. They rode calves and bucking broncs and even wrestled steers. The oldest had been so helpful in building the family's original log cabin and sawing wood for the stove that her father had affectionately called her "son;" she was a widow now, bossing her late husband's spread, building it up for her two boys, even going along on trail drives in her own buggy.

Celie had a face much like her father's, aquiline but lacking any sharp angularity, strong without the severe line of his blunt jaw; her copper-red hair exactly matched the darker strands in his shaggy gray head. She wore a big, gaudily striped bandanna, long leather gauntlets, deep-necked checkered cotton blouse and buckskin riding skirt. By the time she was ten, she'd been able to rope and ride with the best of her father's cowboys. At eleven she was sent to boarding school in St. Louis—the only one of the quartet to go—to "learn to be a lady." She hated it, and begged so hard to come home that after a year her father finally gave in. At thirteen she scrambled aboard a wild calf for the amusement of the town, which took up a collection for her; the following year she rode a steer at the Fourth of July celebration and won $25 in bets she'd made on herself. By fifteen she was branding calves and building fences, and at sixteen she roped a wolf and dragged it to death. Before her seventeenth birthday she'd been earning her own money breaking horses for neighboring ranches—in direct competition with Slim, and more recently Jess, which might have fed into the Texan's resentment of her. Self-reliant and at home in the saddle, she was not only expert with Colt and Winchester, she didn't fear to use them against humans, as she had proved on one occasion, riding alone ("recklessly," her father admitted) in pursuit of a trio of cattle rustlers and killing the leader and one of his men.

She stuck out her chin, now, and glared at the blue-eyed Texan. "Well, then," she said, "if you're not afraid to get licked again, why don't you see if you can prove that?"

"I don't have to prove a dang thing to you, Celie McCaskey, and you best keep that in mind, too!" Jess snapped.

"Then why make such a big thing of it?" said she calmly.

"I ain't either."

"You are."

"No, I ain't."

"Yeah, you are, and I'll bet you twenty I can whip you by a full inch this time, so there!"

Jess took a breath to respond, stopped, and looked from Celie's resolute features to her father's amused expression to Slim's open grin. "Dang it," he muttered, "man ain't got no chance around here when even his best friend starts gangin' up on him— All right, then, it's a bet!"

"Done!" Celie stuck out her gauntleted hand to shake on it, and he reluctantly pumped it once, sharply, Indian-style. "Pa and Slim are witnesses. Who'll we get to hold the stakes?"

"Mort Corey," Jess offered.

"Fine. Let's go find him."

They wheeled as one and marched off up the street, Reed and Slim watching in amusement. "You reckon either one of 'em knows what's goin' on?" the old man asked presently.

"I don't think they've got a clue," Slim replied, with a chuckle. "Mavericks the pair of 'em, and I'm still nowhere near gettin' Jess fully broke to civilization yet."

"We'd better catch up," Reed observed. "Mort might want more than just their word about the bet."

"He might," Slim agreed. "Besides, I want to see how he reacts when he finds out they're gonna be shootin' against each other again."

"As long as they don't get confused and start shootin' _at_ each other," said Reed, "I don't reckon he'll mind."

"Well, we better make sure they don't, 'cause I don't know where I'd find a better ranchhand than Jess, and I sure wouldn't like to get in a feud with you over your favorite girl gettin' hurt," Slim told him.

Bantering on in that manner, the two long-legged men set out to catch up with the proud-hearted rivals.

**SR**

Having gotten the bet more or less officially registered, and themselves signed up for the competitions they meant to enter, Slim and Jess made their way to the exhibition tents to find the rest of their household. "Floral Hall" was abuzz with the voices of women from twelve to eighty-plus, fussing over the work of their hands that they had brought: cheese in huge fifty-pound hoops, covered with white cheesecloth and boxed in thin new wood; butter in tubs, molds, firkins, and pats; garden flowers and house plants; cookies, cakes, pies, bread, and row after row of glass jars of jams, jellies, pickles, relishes, preserves, and "canned" goods (more correctly jarred or in crocks, hence Slim's father's preference for the general term "put-ups") of every description; bedspreads, quilts, dresses, aprons trimmed with crochet-work and tatting, sheets and pillowcases embellished with insertion and lace, tablecloths, tidies, bags, lace by-the-yard, woolwork, "drawn-thread" work, bonnets, knitted and crocheted items; embroidery of all sorts—Berlin work, crewel-work, Turkeywork, regular and counted cross-stitch, needlepoint, trapunto, candle-wicking, and embroidery on composition board; hooked rugs, rag rugs, loom-woven rugs; pencil and charcoal sketches, watercolors, oil paintings, paintings on glass, china, and velvet; shell and fish-scale flowers, dried-flower arrangements, cast-plaster creations, beading, woodburning, netting, braiding, appliqué, embossed leather, cloth birds, inlaid ivory, painted lampshades and fire-screens, sofa-pillows; shell-work, cone-work, wax-work, leather-work, feather-work, moss-work, hair-work; potichomania, transparencies, leaf impressions, even taxidermy.

They found Daisy, flushed with excitement, near the middle of the space, happily tweaking the arrangement of her display, which included not only two or three dozen Mason jars of culinary delights, a crock of sugared doughnuts, a pan of half-moon apple turnovers and one of gingerbread with butter frosting, spicy brown hermits stuffed with hickory meats and chopped currants, an apple pudding sprinkled with cinnamon, and an assortment of cookies, among them a batch of "rocks," made of of sweet dough with raisins and hickory nuts in them, but an embroidered rug, a set of pillow shams thick with satin stitch and French knots, an intricate pieced quilt of the pattern called "Old Man's Troubles," and a patchwork chair-cushion. "Well," said Jess, folding his arms, "I reckon now I know what was in them crates, don't you, pard?"

"Yeah, I think you're right," Slim agreed. "Daisy, you _are _plannin' on lettin' us eat all that eventually, aren't you?"

"What I want to know," said Jess, "is how she kept it all such a dadgum good secret from the rest of us."

"Oh, Mike knew," Daisy told him cheerfully. "In fact he helped with some of it. Of course I had to bribe him a bit so he wouldn't let you know where it was hidden."

"Daisy!" Slim exclaimed in pretended shock. "You? Stoopin' to bribery? Don't you know that's corruptin' the morals of a minor?"

"If I hadn't," said she, "you'd have been corrupting your own, sneaking about trying to get a taste. Nobody tastes any of this until the judges have a chance to try it."

"Well, you ain't fixin' to just stay in here and keep watch over it, are you, Daisy?" Jess asked. "There's a lot out there to see, and you wrote your sister you wanted to see it."

"How did you know what I wrote to Violet?" Daisy demanded.

Jess grinned slyly. "I'm like you, Daisy, I got my ways. You comin'? There's one of them picture fellers got himself set up over by Doc's house..."

"Oh!" the housekeeper gasped excitedly. "Oh, Slim, we must get a family portrait taken—please!"

"Well, I think we can afford it," Slim told her with a smile. "Let's find Mike—I'm guessin' he's next door in the livestock tent?"

He was, and when he heard that a portrait was contemplated, he insisted that Buttons should appear in it too. "I can make him sit still, Slim, honest I can—I've been teachin' him so we'd get a better shot at the prize," he said.

"Well, all right, we'll give it a try," Slim decided, "but if the photographer says he goes, then he goes, agreed?"

"Okay."

Like fairs and holiday celebrations everywhere, Roundup Day invariably attracted an assortment of independent midway attractions that moved from one town festival to another all season, besides medicine-showmen, itinerant peddlers, a travelling photographer's tent, and the concessionaires connected to the circus. Some of these nomads had set up in the openings of alleys between buildings, others on any bit of level land they could find, and still more on the flat out beyond the tents. There was a merry-go-round (powered by a mule on a treadmill), a shooting gallery featuring metal ducks (some stationary, some moving on little trolleys), a glassworks, an organ grinder, a minstrel troupe, a monkey show, a greased-pig catch, a wheel of fortune, "learned pigs," stands and raffles, a shell game, and the Streets of Cairo, a sort of unaffiliated sideshow with a barker making tactful allusion to the daring dances performed inside and the grisly bones unearthed in a cellar somewhere, record of a mysterious murder. Vendors offered peanuts, hot roasted corn, spun-sugar candy by the nickel cornucopia-full, cakes, melons, sweet drinks and lager beer, taffy pulled while you watched, and "candy cream," long strips of a sweet confection that was cut with scissors and wrapped in tissue paper as it emerged from the machine that made it, as well as balloons, whistles, whips, windmills-on-a-stick, and cheap jewelry such as children enjoyed.

The photographer, like most of the other itinerants, did his travelling in a large box wagon, not unlike the one used by the Japanese who had first brought Mike to Sherman Ranch, but when he pulled into a new town he set up his "studio" in a tent out back. This tent measured twelve feet by sixteen, with an eleven-foot peak and six-foot walls, and had a six-foot-square annex for use as a darkroom, with black fabric pinned to the inside walls. Though the albumen print had been the dominant form of photographic positives since the mid-'50's, tintypes remained simple and fast—the photographer could prepare, expose, develop, and varnish a tintype plate in only a few minutes' time, quickly having it ready for a customer and himself ready to make another picture, which made the process very popular among itinerants, who needed to make the most of every minute they had in each town they visited. The pictures produced in this way were also cheap and mailable, and in recent years a new kind of tintype camera had come into being, with four lenses, which could produce four images of each pose. Apart from his availability to communities that hadn't yet grown big enough to attract fixed photographic studios of their own, such a "picture feller," as Jess called them, was competitive in price, charging about a dollar per print, two with frame. Laramie's visitor today had a four-lens camera, probably on the principle that people on the frontier might have numerous kin back East who would appreciate current likenesses of them, and Daisy insisted on paying for one to send to her sister. His canvas studio was furnished as well as most regular ones, with rugs of pea-green artificial grass, hollow wooden stone walls with the back part open, tall screens painted with clouds and trees and hills, moveable wooden balustrades and pedestals painted to look like marble, and scenic "backgrounds"—large painted canvases stretched on frames, including a desert scene, a waterfall with tall trees and ferns at the side, the terrace of an Italian villa, palm trees waving against a billowy ocean, varying shades of gray and black blending together—along with a couple of low-backed chairs of ornate woodwork, a small spindly-legged table holding a Bible and other accessories, and an imitation potted palm.

They put Daisy at the center, in one of the chairs, with Slim to her left, Jess to her right, and Mike half in front of Jess, Buttons at his feet. The dog, surprisingly, seemed to have taken his master's lessons to heart; he sat up straight, his bright eyes fixed on the camera, even his bushy tail still, as the photographer focused, ducked into the darkroom to get the coated plate, fitted it into the device, pulled a black cloth over his head and the camera, and exposed the plate. He then sent the family out and hurried the plate back into the darkroom to be developed. In only a few minutes he presented them with their four copies, and Slim, gracefully declining the offer of frames, handed over four dollars. "See," said Mike proudly, "I told you Buttons would sit still! Look, he's not blurred at all."

"Violet will be so pleased to get this," Daisy declared happily. "I don't think she believed me when I told her what handsome boys I have!"

"Gettin' time for the ropin', ain't it?" said Jess. "We better get you over there, pard, or they'll think you ain't comin'. I'll go fetch Alamo for you if you want."

"Why," said Daisy wonderingly, watching the ex-gunslinger's back as he headed for Dennison's, "whatever's the matter with Jess? He doesn't seem to be at all pleased with these lovely pictures, does he?"

"I think," Slim replied, his voice low and quiet, "it's because he wishes he could have a picture of his other family, the one he lost all those years ago. It's been so long, he's probably forgotten what they looked like, and that hurts him, because he has his own copy of this one, now, and he won't forget how _we_ look."

"Oh, dear. I hadn't thought of that." Daisy suddenly looked troubled; not for anything in the world would she have knowingly hurt one of "her boys," and even doing so without being aware of it made her feel she had somehow betrayed the one she loved best because he seemed to need her most.

"I don't think he thought of it himself, till he had the print in his hand," Slim told her. "You saw how eager he was to get us here. It didn't really hit him until just this minute, what it meant. Come on," he added briskly. "We need to get over to the ropin' pen before he beats us there with Alamo. I've seen cutting horses that could cut without a rider, but never a ropin' horse that could rope a steer by itself."

**SR**

Slim was third up in the steer-roping, and Jess stayed just long enough to hear the announcement that his friend had tied his beast in "twelve point six seconds!" before quietly slipping away; he didn't think anybody had much chance of beating that time. He walked slowly out to Front Street and started up toward Dennison's, not with any specific goal or errand in mind, just wandering—_driftin', _he told himself wryly, _again_. Not that he felt the lure of the Big Open all that much, any more. His first couple of years at Sherman Ranch, yeah, there'd been times—but he reckoned he was gettin' settled now, comin' to think of the place as his home. Fact was, he'd known since his first Christmas there—maybe before—that it was exactly that, but still he'd gotten that restless itch from time to time. Didn't now, much, and when he did it was easily scratched—take on a job for Mort or the line, or volunteer to go buy or sell stock, or get his rifle and go huntin' a day or two.

He stopped in front of the barbershop, where, because it was one of the town's informal men's clubs, the owner had installed a wooden bench under the window, and settled down there to remove his copy of their new "family portrait" from inside his shirt. It still carried a faint whiff of developing chemicals. He gazed at it, half sad, half bemused—for Slim, perceptive as always toward his friend's moods, had correctly guessed at the overwhelming sad nostalgia that had struck him when he first saw it and consciously realized he would never have one of his ma and pa and the other kids. It wasn't that his birth family had been anything to boast about—he'd even told Slim once that his sister Francie had been worth more than all the rest of them put together, and how that had happened he couldn't have explained if his life had depended on it—but still they'd been _his,_ his blood, and they'd had their lives cut cruelly short long before time. That was one reason he'd been so sullenly angry at not having the chance to kill Frank Bannister himself, down Fort Defiance. He'd wanted to ask the man why. He could have understood if it had been Indians; he could have accepted the unthinking malice of Nature, like a blizzard or a stampede or a prairie fire; but he'd never yet, after more than twelve years brooding on it, been able to get a handle on why the outlaws had found it necessary to wipe out the entire Harper family, or at least try to, even the girls and the little boys. What had the Harpers ever done to them? What threat did they pose to the gang? The Bannisters hadn't even tried to loot the house, not that there'd been much in it worth taking; they'd just torched it. True enough, Jess and Francie and their brother Johnny had been shooting at them, but the Bannisters had had the weight of numbers; they could have found some other way to deal with the situation. Or they could have simply rejoined their friends who were trying to run off the _remuda,_ maybe just left a man or two to bottle the young Harpers up till that job was done. They hadn't had to resort to fire and murder. After Jess got home from New Mexico, Slim had said that maybe they'd done it "because that was what they did;" because it was their trademark. Maybe he'd been right. Maybe he hadn't. Jess didn't think he'd ever stop wondering. _Someday,_ he told himself, _someday before I go up that last long trail, I'd like to know. Even if, like with Bannister, I don't get no chance to even things, I'd still like to know._

Still, it was pleasant to know he'd found a place where he was welcome, where people cared about him, where they fussed over him some when he was sick or hurt, and thought on what he might like to have for Christmas, and walked kind of soft around the sore places in his heart. It had been such a long time since he'd had them things, when they first started comin' back into his life he'd found it hard to believe they were real. They'd even scared him, like the way a longhorn steer frights at things it's not sure of. He'd been so long alone, and gotten so used to the idea that, as a sometime gunslinger-for-hire, he'd be unlikely to have anything but a short, solitary life, that he'd had to take some time to adjust to havin' all that back in his world again—or in it at all, in some cases. He still wondered how it had been that, of all the ranches he might have wandered onto, the one he'd picked had been Slim's, and just in time to side him against Bud Carlin and—somehow, he wasn't quite sure just why—move the rancher to invite him to stay on, to offer him a job. After the way Slim had reacted when he found that out about Andy and the cards, he'd have reckoned it was the _last_ place he'd be given any chance of stayin'.

_Maybe,_ he told himself, _maybe Life, or God, or Fate, or somethin', just finally decided it'd had enough of dumpin' on Jess Harper, and this is how it makes up. Well, it done real good._ He looked at the tintype again. _Got to write Jonesy or Andy and see if they can have a likeness took too. Lord knows Slim oughtta have one, and I sure wouldn't kick about a copy._

He stood, raising his hand to tuck the picture safely back into his shirt, and then stopped as his eye lit on one of the itinerants' box wagons, parked just across the street. It was a real big one, fully the size of a Conestoga wagon, twenty-five or -six feet long and a good six feet wide, besides a ten-foot trail unit hooked on behind, from which came a steady sound of dogs yipping. There was no sign of the team—it had probably been unhooked and taken up to Dennison's for water and feed—but he knew it would run eight or ten big Belgians. The sign gaudily painted across the sides, somewhat faded now from a season's weather, read:

_Dr. Jerathmael Pennybuck_

_Miraculous Cures from the Mysterious East_

_Pennybuck's Persian Salve – Oriental Ointment – Turkish Tonic – Elixir of Ekisehir_

_Featuring _

_Pennybuck's Highly Trained Canine Troupe!_

_Avalon, the Educated Equine!_

_Miss Melisande Pennybuck, the Nightingale of Nashville!_

_The World-Famous Pennybuck Puppets, 365 Figures!_

_The Wonderful Leaping Cat Spot, Springing 15 Feet High Through a Hoop of Fire!_

_Willie Blue, the Sixgun Wizard!_

_Fortunes Told, 50c._

A grin spread slowly across Jess's face as he read. "Well, I'll be dadgummed," he murmured to himself. And just then the door at the back of the big wagon opened, and a girl—no, she was a young woman now, must be near onto Celie McCaskey's age—emerged, negotiating the hanging steps with the ease of long familiarity. She had taffy-colored hair dressed up off her nape and held by metal barrettes that flashed like gold in the autumn sunlight, and was neatly clad in a fresh-looking green-and-lemon plaid with a green ribbon sash. Jess took a quick look up and down the street to make sure nothing was coming fast enough to mow him down midway, and headed across in long, rapid strides. She had sensibly turned away from the trafficway, probably meaning to go around between the trail unit and the boardwalk and get the dogs out for a run, and didn't know he was there until he spoke. "Howdy, Melly."

She whirled, gave him one raking up-and-down look, and hurled herself into his arms with a squeal of joy. "Jess! Jess Harper!"

She hit him with such force that he spun around almost one full circle, laughing at her exuberance. "Well, I reckon some things don't change," he said, "though if I hadn't'a' seen the wagon first I might'a' not known you, Melly. Look at you, you're growed up!"

She dropped back to the flat of her feet as he loosed his embrace, looking him up and down again. "So are you. You don't look like a half-starved wolf any more. You look almost... I don't know—happy? And settled. And decently fed, at last."

"Maybe that's 'cause I am. All of 'em," Jess told her. "Come on, let's sit down somewheres and catch up."

"But the dogs—!" she protested.

"The dogs've waited this long, they can wait a little longer," he said, and gently but irresistibly towed her over to the side of the saddle shop, where a couple of large empty wooden crates, waiting to be broken up for firewood, offered seating. "So how's your pa? Still makin' a livin' off the not-so-sick, I reckon. And Shadrach? And you're still advertisin' Willie Blue, who you got carryin' his name now?"

"Jess, slow down! And where are your manners? Don't you know the lady should get to ask first?"

He pretended to frown. "Ain't ever heard that was expected."

"Well, it is from me!" she retorted tartly, and then sobered. "We heard about you, time to time, after you left us. Heard you'd built up a name as a fast gun. Pa said it was a waste of a fine entertainer, not to mention a decent young man."

"Aw, Melly," he protested, "I was never cut out for show business. And a man's got to eat, and hirin' his gun out fetches in a lot more money than just workin' cows. Ain't it your pa that always says a man ought to know his gifts and make use of 'em?"

"Yes, for the good of humanity," she amended. "And is killing others for the good of humanity?"

"Sometimes," he said somberly, thinking of Bannister. "Sometimes. And what about them medicines of your pa's, you know what's in 'em even better'n I do."

"Well, but we give the customers their money's worth and more, with the show," Melly reminded him. "Remember how they used to gasp at your turn? How they'd applaud when you were done?"

"Yeah, I remember," he had to admit. There'd been a pleasant warmth to it, knowing that his skill with a sixgun could be turned to some use other than mowing down his fellow man. And yet, in the end, his forthright nature had rebelled at pretending to be something he wasn't. Funny thing, he reflected: here was ol' Slim, as upright and straight-arrow an _hombre_ as ever lived, and he could—and had, without hardly a thought—pose as a desperado and come dang close onto pullin' it off, that time Tom Bedloe's gang came to town; and here was he, who'd sometimes been called a desperado (and other things), and he couldn't even carry off a little bit of harmless play-actin'.

He'd been barely out of the Army when he'd met the Pennybucks; on his way south and east from Fort Union, heading back to Texas with some thought of looking up Francie, after just about a year in the Fifth U.S. Volunteers—the "Galvanized Yankees," some called them—patrolling the Santa Fe Trail and butting heads with the Mescaleros in New Mexico. His outfit had been released in July, after news came of the Confederacy's surrender—they were all former prisoners of war, after all, who'd signed up with the recruiters to get away from the hellish conditions in the Yankee camps, and once there was no longer a war, with the Regulars sure to be returning to the frontier, there was no more reason to keep them than there was to hold the prisoners. He'd lost his horse—that was before he got Trav; had to shoot it when it stepped in a gopher hole and broke its leg, and he'd been plodding along, lugging his saddle and baggage, not plumb sure where he was or how to get anywhere else, having been taking a shortcut across the prairie between trails, when he came on the Pennybucks and their wagon. He'd been out of food for two days by then, and almost out of water, and starting to get feverish, and they'd taken him in, cooled him down, dosed him—_not_ with any of Doc Pennybuck's "Miraculous Cures from the Mysterious East," but with plain honest folk medicines—and given him food and drink till he got his strength back, and then offered him a job doing trick- and sharpshooting for their show and matching locals at targets for stake money, ten dollars a week plus his grub and a share of his winnings. Since he badly needed a horse, and that meant money—the Volunteers had only paid standard Army, thirteen dollars a month for a private, and even saving every penny and amplifying it at poker, he'd had just about enough to buy himself a civilian saddle and gear—he'd agreed; it was then that he'd developed his signature trick of plugging a silver dollar in mid-air. It had taken him a while to get used to the rather gaudy costume he was expected to wear—a blue silk shirt with a big yellow flower worked across the shoulders, a golden bandanna of fine soft silk, fine buckskin gauntlets with eight-inch cuffs covered in intricate beadwork, tight fawn-colored trousers, a fringed red silk sash with a silver-conchaed black leather belt buckled over it; except when it came time for a dance or a wedding or some such, he wasn't a man who cared for fancy clothes. But they'd treated him decent, almost, he now realized, as Slim and the others did, like he was one of the family, and they'd fed him up a lot better than the Army cooks had, and always been prompt with his pay, and Melly, who'd been thirteen then, had developed a regular crush on him—love, she'd probably have called it. Maybe it had been that, as much as anything else, that had pushed him into leaving; he'd liked her, but the same way he would have liked a little sister if he'd had one that age, and he'd heard enough, from the fellows in his unit in the Volunteers and in the war, to know that a young girl with romance on her mind could be one of the most devious creatures on God's earth—he didn't want to hurt her, or get pushed into something he wasn't ready for, and he sure didn't like having to think twice about everything he did or said around her. So he saved his money, and as soon as he had fifty dollars he'd found himself a horse and taken off. Soon afterward he'd been on a trail crew heading for Abilene; that was where he'd met Christy, and, in the end, begun to gain a name as a gunslinger.

"So," Melly said, breaking into his reminiscences, "what are you doing in Laramie, Jess? Are you... working around here?"

"Yeah," he agreed, "but not the way you're thinkin', Melly. I—well, I quit that line. I don't hire my gun out no more, 'ceptin' sometimes when the stage line needs extra security or Sheriff Corey wants a special deputy." He saw the half-marvel, half-bewilderment wash across her face, and grinned. "I got a home, Melly. A _home."_

She took a moment to absorb and believe, and then she squealed again and threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, Jess, I'm so glad! Where is it? Tell me about it!"

"It's a place called Sherman Ranch, twelve miles out," he explained. "Little cow spread, a few breedin' mares, hay in the bottoms, and we're a change station for the Overland too, a relay. Here—" He held out the tintype, which he'd been holding all along. "This is us, we just had it took less'n an hour ago. That tall feller, that's my boss, Slim Sherman—he owns the place, his pa started it, back before the war. He's... I reckon he's about the best friend I got on this Earth, or ever did have, or ever will. The kid's Mike; his folks were killed by Indians about six months ago, and we took him in, Slim got us inspected by a judge and everythin'—straightest-arrow _hombre_ I ever met, that's Slim. And the lady, she's Daisy; she keeps house for us and cooks, come out here after some no-good back East sold her a store that didn't exist in a town that wasn't there; she was close to bein' dead broke, and the judge said we needed a woman on the place to look after Mike, and Lord knows neither one of us is much of a cook, so Slim hired her on, and now she's more like a ma to us than anythin' else."

She took the picture gently from his hand, and he let her have it, let her examine the faces with the keen perception of one whose livelihood—and sometimes liberty—depends on judging the temperament of others. "They look like fine people," she said, almost in a whisper. "And you... you look like you fit with them, like they were pieces of a puzzle and you were the one that finished it. Jess, I'm glad for you—I am, truly. I've thought about you often, these last few years... wondered where you were, how you were doing..." She handed the print back. "I'm so happy that you've found a home at last. And your Daisy must be a fine cook—look how you've filled out! You even look broader in the shoulders."

"That's just the shirt," he said. "The bib of it makes what Slim calls an illusion. Now tell me what's gone on with you all this time. How many dogs you got now?"

"Still twelve. The ten main ones and the two comics. And Spot, the one you knew, she's retired; her son does the leaping now. The show's about the same as it was when you were with us: Pa does card tricks and magic and sleight of hand, and plays the banjo for me when I sing, and Shad juggles and puts Avalon through his paces, and I do the dog act. And, yes, we've got a new Willie Blue; he's been with us almost a year now. His real name's Kennedy, Paul Kennedy. He's not quite as good as you were, but he likes it a lot better, and that makes the difference."

_No, nobody I know,_ he thought, relieved at the fact; it would have troubled him if they'd hired on some no-good with, maybe, an agenda of his own, or somebody on the run from something who could get them jailed for harboring a fugitive if the law found out about it. "Where's everybody at?"

"Shad took the horses up to the stable—Avalon and the team, and Paul's horse Choctaw. Paul's putting up posters for our show tonight. Pa, well, I'm not sure where Pa is; maybe just out getting a feel for the competition, if there is any." She looked him in the eyes, and he was struck, as he'd often been, by the color of hers: green with white flecks and a gray rim, he couldn't recall ever knowing anyone with eyes just like them. "You'll come, won't you? And bring your... your family? I know Pa and Shad would like to meet them. The almanac says sunset's at five, so by six-thirty it should be dark enough for a good effect."

"Kinda dark for trick-shootin', though," he observed.

"Not for Paul. Paul's got eyes like a cat for darkness; he says he gets it from his grandma. It gives him an edge. But we do the shooting separately, by daylight, just the way we did when you were Willie. And we're going to wait on it till tomorrow, because the posters say you're having your own rifle shoot today, and we didn't want to compete. But we still do the main show in the evening."

"Well, I don't know if we can all come," Jess mused— "Daisy's gotta take Mike home so's he can calm down enough to get to bed, but I'll try to bring Slim by, anyhow. Or maybe you could just drop by the ranch on your way out of town. You just go straight out through them pines up yonder and follow the stage road; there's signs that say 'Sherman Ranch,' you can't get lost. That'd give us all some real chance to catch up, better'n we could do before your show or even after it."

"I'll talk to Pa about it when I see him," she promised. "And now I've _got_ to go give the dogs their exercise, or they'll be so keyed up they'll start missing their cues! Jess, I'm glad you've found a good place."

"Yeah," he said quietly, "me too. Well, I reckon I better get movin' too, I'm signed up for the cowpony race and it's at eleven-thirty, I got to get my horse saddled and up to the startin' line."

"Break a leg," said she, in the customary wish of show people, "and we'll see you at your ranch, maybe, in a day or two."

**SR**

"_Well, how does it look?"_

"_Not hard. The building's just a frame crackerbox; the windows are barred and the back door's got no outside keyhole, but if we have to we can just saw out a piece of wall."_

"_Mmm... that takes time, though. Maybe it would be better to take an impression of the front-door lock. I hear the rifle shoot is at one, and it attracts a lot of attention; there's some kind of rivalry between a couple of the contestants, a girl and a fellow from neighboring ranches. That should still give us enough time... What about the safe?"_

"_It's a Kirby. Bolted to rings in the floor, I'm pretty sure. A big one, taller than you are."_

"_That probably means there's no cache in the cellar, like some places. And at least it's not a Wentworth. We can blow it, or throw the combination out of line, though that will take longer. Yes... I think powder. How much do we have on hand?"_

"_Two kegs, and about half another. Enough?"_

"_It had better be, everything's shut up tight as a drum, except the saloons and eateries."_

"_How much do you think we can get?"_

"_Well, there'll be the $20,000 cash on hand that a bank always has to have to satisfy the examiner. Then a bunch of the local ranchers just came back from selling over 3000 head at Cheyenne, which fetched $25 per, so that's more than $75,000; some will have gone to pay off summer help, but most was probably deposited or used to pay on mortgages and store bills, and the storekeepers used their share of it to pay their mortgages, or deposit against drafts for merchandise. Plus whatever the place had on hand before the ranchers got home... I'd say we're looking at a good ninety thousand, at least."_

"_Good timing, that we got here when we did."_

"_I'll agree with that. All right. We'll have three hours at most. Let's get started."_

**SR**

The cowpony race was generally held to be the highpoint of the first day of Roundup Day, perhaps because this was, after all, cattle country, and no way had yet been invented to work cattle in the vast distances of the West without horses. Most of the entrants tended to have more or less quarter-horse or mustang blood, the former being of three main types: the thick, chunky, short-legged A- or "bulldog" type, very stout and hardy and capable of quick starts, stops, and turns; the less chunky and handy B-type, a little speedier and more Thoroughbred-like; and the C-type, which looked much like a Thoroughbred but had shorter legs and lower, less sharp withers. Of these the first two were most often used for stockhorse purposes, and were known as the "Steeldust" type, after the famous founding stallion. All of them made excellent cowponies, skillful at cornering, tenaciously able to carry a rider over rugged land, swim rivers, scramble up and down steep mountain trails, push through dense brush, and act as rope and cutting animals. They could break fast, in incredible lightning-like sprints, hit top speed in three strides, turn "on a dime," and make sudden dead stops. But they were sprinters, not distance horses. The term "quarter horse" was, in fact, used for any horse that could run a quarter-mile with good speed, and many pure-blooded sprinting Throughbreds were called so. The smaller pureblood mustangs, on the other hand, would die before they tired, but weren't fast animals at under five miles: a horse with early speed, such as came of crossing Missouri or Kentucky studs with range mares, could easily run them down inside that space.

Jess's Traveller was of mixed ancestry, part Kentucky, part mustang, and part Virginia quarter sprinter, which was why he'd cost eighty-five dollars (or would have, if Jess hadn't taken him in trade for some gun work, back early in '68) when an average riding horse went for ten to thirty. He was, in fact, typical of the newer kind of cowhorse becoming popular in the West. Mostly a horse either had "cow sense" or he didn't, and there was no way to tell which until you started working him around cattle, about the age of three or four. If he didn't, his chief utility would probably come in line- or circle-riding or trail-driving, in all of which he needed endurance, and in the first two of which he might be called on for sustained speed, either in chasing cattle or if his rider got jumped by Indians or had to race the weather to shelter. So the new type had come into being, with the mustang ancestry contributing wind and toughness, the Thoroughbred spirit and speed, and the quarter pony the gift for stock work. It also made for longer and more exciting races, since the best grade of pure sprinter could cover its 440 yards in under half a minute. Laramie's race course was laid out to provide a test of speed, agility, and staying power all at once: it was a little under a mile long and involved a straightaway gallop down Front Street, a loop around the grove where the dance pavilion was erected every year, and a return back almost to the starting line. You could always tell when the race was about to commence: all wheeled traffic would be cleared off the thoroughfare, tethered horses removed from the racks so they wouldn't break free in excitement and cause jam-ups, and only a few parked wagons, reckoned large enough for any sensible horse to easily avoid, left where they stood.

Jess wasn't surprised to find Slim ready to show off the spurs that had been the first prize for the steer-roping. "Knew you'd get 'em, pard," he said.

Slim was eyeing Celie's oldest brother, Joe, a lanky eighteen-year-old, and his white-pointed chestnut sorrel, which displayed the same marks of speed and endurance as Traveller: stout bone, slanting shoulders, a deep, broad chest, powerful clean-lined legs, and knees neither too high nor too low. "I think Reed and Celie were right," he said quietly. "Joe's sorrel is the one you'll have to beat. Look at those forequarters—long, full, smoothly muscled. He's slimmer than a sprinter, too, and longer-muscled."

"Yeah," Jess agreed, observing the wide nostrils that could gather wind on a long run. "Reckon what it'll come down to is which of us can ride the course better, know when to go for a good burst of speed. Unless you ain't bettin' on me, hardcase?"

"What gave you that idea?" Slim retorted. "I'm always ready to back you, Jess—with my word, or a gun, or my money."

The younger man grinned and punched him lightly on the arm. "I know that. Just havin' fun, is all. Hey, remind me after the race—I run into an old friend, somebody who wants to meet my... family."

"This isn't the kind of old friend we used to have droppin' by a year or two ago, is it?" Slim asked suspiciously. "The kind that wants payment on an old debt, or help with some kind of trouble, or somethin' like that?"

Jess had no opportunity to answer, for just then Mort Corey, the starter, was heard shouting the order: "All right, listen up! All riders, bring your mounts to the line!"

He quickly turned Traveller toward the head of the street, just below the last of the evergreens, and took his place in the jostling row of eighteen excited horses. Riders were checking back hard, some turning their mounts in tight little circles, others fighting down animals that wanted to rear, and all trying to keep an eye on Corey, who had temporarily exchanged his double shotgun for a starter's pistol. All down the length of Front Street the boardwalks were crowded with spectators, silence spreading along their ranks as they realized that the race was about to begin. Jess sat his saddle lightly, perfectly balanced, soothing Traveller with a gloved hand patting his neck. "Steady, boy," he murmured. "Steady—"

_BANG!_ The sheriff's pistol went off, and the field sprang forward in a single great surge, greeted by a roar from the spectators that broke in a cascade of cheers and yells of encouragement to favorites. Jess leaned over Traveller's neck, eyes searching, not the course, but sideways for Joe McCaskey and his sorrel. When he found them, he began subtly edging the bay in their direction, working his way across the breadth of the field while letting Traveller choose his own forward pace. Traveller for his part had been in enough long-distance pursuits that he knew he had to save some of his power, and he held back a bit, going not at his best speed but at a nice twenty-mile-an-hour gallop.

Strung out now, the pack of horses thundered around the turn at the bottom of the street and headed back up the way they'd come. Jess was now about a length behind Joe's sorrel and keeping Traveller to a steady pace, watching the younger rider for the subtle cues that would tell him what strategy Joe meant to make use of. Was he holding back too? Not having raced against this horse before, Jess couldn't tell.

There were three horses ahead of him as he passed Mort's office: the sorrel, a long-striding black with a good leaven of Thoroughbred blood, and a compact sandy-maned lineback dun, only about fifteen hands high, which, with less body mass to control than a larger horse would have, could maneuver better in tight quarters and rapidly recover his balance if jammed into or bumped off stride. Now Joe began to make his move. Jess gave Traveller a nudge with the spurs and the bay leaped forward, neck outstretched; passed the black thirty seconds after the sorrel had, brushed by the dun, and fell in beside Joe's horse, his muzzle even with the sorrel's girth. Jess could hear the clamor of the crowd at the finish line; Traveller's hooves seemed to thunder in rhythm with his own heart. _"Now, boy!"_ he hollered, and let the bay go. The two of them flashed up the length of the last block of buildings; out of the side of his left eye Jess could see the age-bleached log wall of the stable looming ever nearer. Traveller inched further up, further—nose even with the sorrel's shoulder, with its crest, its throatlatch, its muzzle. The yellow-chalked finish rope hung like a streak of sunlight across their path, breast-high to the hurtling horses. It was there, and then it wasn't, snapped as the hurtling weight of the winner hit it. Jess sat back hard, thrusting his feet deep into the stirrups, and Traveller squatted, skidding on his "rear wheels" as every good cowpony is trained to do. Dust swirled up around them, temporarily blinding the rider. Traveller plunged briefly, then someone caught his bridle, and Jess heard Mort Corey's voice: _"First place—Jess Harper of Sherman Ranch, on Traveller!"_

Then Slim was there, half dragging him out of the saddle, pounding his back and shoulder in joyous congratulation. "You did it, pard! You broke the Laramie horse-race record—seven wins, and five in a row!"

"Good race, Jess." That was Joe McCaskey, losing gracefully. "Still, I did better this year than I ever have since you came to Slim's place. Tomahawk and I aren't givin' up on beatin' you yet!"

"You done real good, Joe," Jess told him sincerely, coughing his throat clear. "If I'd moved another ten seconds later, I'd'a' come in second. It's all timing."

"Timing, and a good horse," said Joe's father, appearing at his son's side. "How about a beer to cut the dust, you two?"

**SR**

It was the rifle match that broke Sherman Ranch's streak of luck. They'd taken a break, after the race, to get the picnic baskets out of the buckboard and feast on the lunch Daisy had packed: cold sliced beef and cold fried chicken, potatoes roasted in the ashes of the little campfire Jess built for the purpose and baked beans warmed up on it, coleslaw with sweet-sour dressing, corn salad, potato salad, hard-boiled eggs, cream biscuits and honey, an assortment of pickles and relishes, angel-food cake with almond icing, and a gooseberry pie, with a big jug of apple cider to wash it all down. After that Daisy and Mike headed back to the exhibition tents, where judging was to begin at one o'clock, and Slim walked down with Jess past the tents to the shooting range.

There was a ten-dollar entry fee, and the first prize, made up of the total fees plus match money from the local businesses, was $500—a tacit recognition of the fact that shooting skill was more than just competitive fun; in this country it could mean life or death. Each contestant brought his—or her—own favorite rifle, and at the end of the range were the paper targets on their straw-stuffed portable backstops, each consisting of a bull's-eye, which counted ten points when hit, and four concentric circles, counting, respectively, four, three, two, and one. Each contestant had five shots, making up a "round," after which the judges totalled up their points and the targets were changed. The six highest-scoring candidates went on to the second, or final, round, and if at the end of this there was a tie, the target was moved another twenty feet back and the tied contestants tried again.

Slim watched gravely as Jess, his expression tight and grim, sighted along the barrel of his Winchester and squeezed off shot after shot, seemingly deaf to the roar of other rifles from either side of him. He knew his friend's pride had been stung when he lost to Celie three and a half months ago, though he wasn't really sure why it should have been; Jess respected anyone who could shoot coolly and well, gender notwithstanding, and he'd already had that one female friend, back in Texas, who'd been a better hand with a rifle than he was—from the tone he took when he talked about her, he hadn't felt any resentment of _her_. Maybe it was just that Celie was so casual about it, that she made it look like she wasn't even trying hard.

They both made it through the final round, tied at fifty points, a perfect score for each. This time it took four tries for Celie to win, forty-three to forty-two—but, much to Jess's obvious chagrin, win she did, and what was more her deciding bullet wasn't an inch, but an inch and a quarter nearer the bull's-eye than his. However, he'd shaken hands on it, and he offered his (brief) congratulations on her good shooting and fell in beside Slim to go pick up Daisy and Mike for the first show of the circus.

With most of the population watching either the judging or the shooting, and Mort Corey occupied with supervising the latter, nobody paid much attention to the rather tall, well-dressed man who sauntered casually along Front Street till he came to the Laramie Bank, leaned back against the door as if to rest in the shade of the awning, slipped his hands behind him, and inserted a block of wax into the lock. A minute or so later he carefully slid it out, glanced briefly at the impressions on its surface, tucked it into his coat pocket, and went back the way he'd come.

Out in Barrett's pasture, a box wagon with a light buckboard hitched on behind, trail-unit fashion, pulled up in the center of the tract and two men set to work unloading the basket and varnished-silk gasbag of Professor Murdine's balloon. They hammered the mooring pegs into place around the basket, fastened the ropes between with slipknots that could easily be pulled out when the moment came for launching, and started the gas-making apparatus that sat at the back of the buckboard. Murdine's daughter, Adrielle, a strawberry blonde of perhaps twenty, watched the familiar routine for a while, then climbed back into the wagon to get into her costume.

With the balloon beginning to inflate, there was need of only one man, and the other one set off for the Big Top; his assistant didn't think anything of it—he was courting one of the girls in the bareback-riding act, and he always liked to watch her perform. As long as he and the Professor got back by four-thirty, they could do as they pleased on their own time.

At two, the Merrill & McCallum ringmaster stepped into the center of the ring, swept off his high silk hat, and bellowed, _"Ladeeeez and gentlemen...!"_

**SR**

The judging hadn't completely finished by the time Slim had come to fetch him (Jess having gone on to get Aunt Daisy at Floral Hall), but it _had _gotten to Pet Number Forty-One, and Mike, thanks to their early arrival, had had Pets Number Thirty-Three and Thirty-Four; only some of the town kids had been able to bring their animal friends earlier than he had. Both Buttons and Twink had performed very creditably, Mike thought, although of course he wouldn't know whether he'd won any ribbons till he got back. What mattered was that he'd _been_ there to give Buttons the commands for his tricks and show the judges how Twink would eat grain from his hand and lie down when he patted her withers. He'd done his best, which, as his pa had said, was what a man should never stop trying to do. Now he could go and see the circus with a clear conscience.

And it was dazzling. Jess had told Aunt Daisy that this "wasn't a big circus, but it knew how to put on a show," and Jess had been right, as he usually was about things like that. Mike sat in the middle of his new family—which he almost loved better than he had his real folks—with Aunt Daisy on one side (so he could hold her hand if things got scary for her), Jess on the other, and Slim beyond Jess, and watched the magic going on in the tanbark-filled ring below. A lion-tamer (he had tigers too) whose cats wrestled with him, balanced on a ball and then set it slowly rolling about their cage, jumped through hoops, leaped over him and crouched at his feet as he cracked his long whip, and fell over as if dead when he fired his gun. He had to be the bravest man in the world—maybe braver even than Slim and Jess; he had a tug-of-war with a baton and a dramatically-groaning lion (who could have reached out and whacked him with its forepaw any time it wanted to) and even put his head in the mouth of one of them. An Italian family of trapeze artists who threw themselves from one hold to another, did pirouettes and somersaults in mid-air and headstands on their swinging traps, and took turns flinging themselves to a catcher—gripping the bar, swinging forward, letting go, turning one or two somersaults, and, with body doubled up and arms outstretched, falling toward the catcher's arms; the two grasped each other's elbows, slid hands down to the wrists, and held there while their bodies swung together in perfect co-ordination, preparatory to another flight. Once one of them did a "double-and-a-half," which concluded with the catcher grabbing the flyer's feet. A group of two dozen liberty horses that walked, trotted, cantered, danced, knelt, bowed, lay down, sat up, reared, upset and replaced chairs, walked a letter-S or a small circle, and then separated into two teams that wove a ladies' chain while trotting at top speed, gradually narrowing their circle until at the climax they were milling around in an incredibly small space with never a wrong turn. Acrobats called "leapers," in pink and silver, who dashed up an inclined running board, took off from a springboard, soared and double-somersaulted a hundred feet over a row of lined-up horses side by side, and came down on a landing pad. Five trained bears, including one that rode a bicycle and another that played an accordion. Two girls who walked the tightrope a hundred feet up in the air—on stilts, with heads enclosed in sacks, or with one in a wheelbarrow or on the other's shoulders—and poured water arcing over their heads from one vase to another. A trained pony that danced on its hind legs to music, untied its trainer's bound hands after a spectator (Mike was incredibly proud that it was Jess, with his "Harper knots," who was picked for the job, even if the knots didn't fool the pony) tied them, found a hidden handkerchief while blindfolded, picked out one of ten large cards chosen by one of the audience and took it to another, selected the American flag from a box of assorted bunting, rolled a barrel with its forefeet while walking on the hind ones, and could count, add, subtract, make change, read minds (a spectator whispered his age in the trainer's ear, and the pony tapped out the number of years with his hoof), graciously kiss the ladies, and write X on a paper to sign his name. A quartet of lady gymnasts. A marvellous complicated performance by thirty dogs and ten Shetland ponies. A black man who did a trick bicycle act. The "Courier's Ride to St. Petersburg," a horse pantomime portraying a courier carrying urgent dispatches from Paris to the Czar: he entered the ring standing on the backs of two horses, which he eased apart just enough to allow first one, then another and another, to pass through between his legs; each horse carried a flag representing a country the courier had to ride through, and as it passed he picked up its reins, until he was driving a full team ahead of him while standing on the original two. A company of "Flying Phenomenons" who gave an unforgettable performance on rings and ropes. The Bounding Brothers of Borneo, a team of tumblers. Huge wrinkled gray elephants rearing, dancing, juggling, standing on pedestals, walking tightropes, doing headstands, and finally forming a pyramid with their turbaned trainer at the apex. A family of singers and dancers on the slack wire. Bareback riders in spangled tights who danced on their mounts' backs, turned handsprings, did headstands and handstands, leaped over bars and turned somersaults over four-foot-wide banners as their horses ran underneath, sprang on and off at full speed, hung head-down with a knee hooked over the animals' withers, spun globes with their feet while lying on their backs, picked small objects off the ground at full speed, speared hanging oranges with swords, drank a glass of wine while riding on two horses simultaneously, and stood erect, juggling flags, while their mounts jumped over a succession of barriers and finally through a blazing hoop. Clowns—dozens of them, it seemed—in pointed caps and polka-dotted suits, who did their own burlesque versions of the main acts: tumblers, vaulters, acrobats, bar performers, rope-dancers, jugglers, contortionists, equestrians; even someone Mike's age could see that such men had to be at least as good as the serious performers they copied, if not more so, able to not only do the tricks but make them seem simple, spontaneous, and funny. One trio of them were tumblers who did a crude little pantomime built around falling, buffetting, tripping over a common pin, and tangling themselves up in their own feet. Another was an animal trainer, with an act of dogs (two rangy spotted great Danes and an assortment of clever little mixbreeds) and piglets and a single white pony. A third came in between acts on a mule, shouting "Whoa, January!"; he showed off its paces, traded mule-for-horse after an interchange with the equestrian director, and then, after the mule balked uncontrollably, was bribed to take back "the horrid animal," which promptly recovered its manners as the clown rode off. A hippodrome race of four-horse chariots, some driven by men in knee-length military tunics, capes, lace-up boots, and metal arm- and wrist- and headbands, some by ladies with ground-length skirts under their tunics and their long hair whipping out behind them. They skidded around the tight turns as if they were going to upset at any moment (though they never did) and flew along the straightaways in front of the blue-painted stringer-and-jack bleacher seats. Vendors passed up and down, offering popcorn, peanuts, candy, gingerbread, pink lemonade, and penny balloons.

The sun was sloping toward the western horizon when the ranch family stepped out of the tent, and just a little ways down the great hulking sphere of the balloon could be seen over the fence, rising higher and higher as the gas was pumped into it. Mike was torn; he had wanted to see the menagerie, but the balloon was only today. "Slim? You said we could see the balloon go up?"

"I said maybe, Mike." His guardian seemed to be working out variables in his head—how long it might take to get Aunt Daisy's food exhibit packed up, whether it would be more efficient to bring the buckboard here (risking getting it caught in a traffic jam on the still-crowded street) or to simply pay somebody to trundle everything over to Dennison's in a barrow. "You and Daisy have to go home without us, you know; that's part of why we brought Traveller and Alamo along—not just for the roping and the race, but so we could go to the dance and get back on our own. And you have to leave by six—five-thirty would be better—'cause you'll want to wind down and get somethin' to eat before you go to bed."

"That balloon," Jess offered, "likely the show that goes with it, that Miss Adrielle, won't take more'n half an hour; folks won't be able to see it good once the sun sets. He could still go, pard, if one of us went with him."

"Yeah," Slim agreed, "but one of us has to help Daisy get all those things into their crates, too."

"Well, that'd be you," Jess replied cheerfully, "you bein' the bigger of us."

"And who picks up our clothes?" Slim asked. "We'll still need to find some place we can change, and the nearer it gets to eight the less of those there are gonna be."

"I'll go," said Jess. "Once you get them crates on the barrow, Daisy can trail-boss it back to the buckboard. I'll hitch up, and meet you at the Stockmen's—Freddie'll let us use his back room, and leave the satchel behind the bar."

"Jess?" Mike ventured. "How about if I go with you? I can take Buttons and Twink back so Aunt Daisy don't have to take care of them, and then we can go straight to the balloon from there."

"I reckon that'd work," Jess agreed. "Okay, Tiger, you come on ahead with me, and Slim and Daisy can follow along a little slower." He grinned at his two-years-older friend, then swept the boy up on his shoulders and set off in long, quick strides.

At the livestock tent there was another wonderful surprise: two blue ribbons, one for Buttons as "Best Trained Domestic Pet," the other for Twink as "Prettiest Wild Pet." The dog danced around Mike's and Jess's feet as they headed up-street to Dennison's, Twink daintily trotting along on her clothesline lead, and Mike repeatedly slipping the ribbons in and out of his shirt as he reread their captions. "Hey, Tiger, take it easy, you'll wear the gold off 'em," Jess warned.

"I can't help it, Jess. I never hoped for two—I figured one, maybe, and not even blue—I'd'a' been happy with red or white. This's been a real good day, ain't it? Slim won the ropin', and you won the horse race, and we saw the circus, and I bet Aunt Daisy's got some ribbons too."

"Yeah, I bet she has," the Texan agreed. "Daisy's the best cook in Laramie County, and I'll lick any man who says she ain't."

"And I'll help you!" Mike said stoutly. "Only I wish you hadn't'a' been beat in the rifle shoot, Jess."

"Well, so do I, kinda," Jess admitted, "but it wasn't for real, so I reckon it don't matter all that much. 'Sides which, I met somebody from a while back, an old friend—you might get to meet her too, I invited her out to the ranch."

"A _girl?!"_ Mike demanded.

"A girl and her pa," Jess corrected, "and a couple fellers that travel with 'em. They run a medicine wagon, and they got a show that goes with it. Trick dogs, and a horse, and magic, and things. Maybe I can get 'em to give us a special performance."

"You think so? It sounds real fine!"

"Yeah," Jess agreed, as they reached the gate of Dennison's pasture, "and maybe, just maybe, if you ask Slim just right, he'll take you back to the circus tomorrow and you can see the menagerie. Only wait till after he's had his breakfast, 'cause we're like to be out kinda late, with the dance, and you know how Slim gets when he ain't had enough sleep."

"Okay," said Mike, grinning conspiratorially at his hero. "Jess? What time's it?"

The man stopped and pulled out his silver-plated watch. "Dadgum, it's quarter past four already, and I got the team to hitch." He glanced toward the great colorful globe of the distant balloon, then down at Mike's half-eager, half-resigned face. Then he squatted down on his heels and put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Tell you what, Tiger. You got your pocket-money, don't you? Okay. You go on ahead and pay your way in, and I'll be along as soon as I can. If you don't see me, or I can't find you, you can get back here all right. Daisy should be waitin' for you by then."

"Sure I can!" Mike agreed. "I can go fishin' by myself, can't I, and pickin' berries for Aunt Daisy?"

"You bet," said Jess, "and you're a lot more like to get in trouble out on our land than here in town. Only keep out the middle of the street, you hear?"

"I hear," Mike assented. "C'mon, Buttons, let's go!" He thrust Twink's leash into Jess's hand and took off, running.

**SR**

The Laramie Fire Department was headquartered in a large false-fronted frame building with double-arched doors at grade for the fire engine; a big window above echoed their shape, with a smaller round-headed one on either side. The barnlike meeting-room on the second floor, measuring thirty by forty feet in addition to the stage at the back, served for all sorts of community functions—fall and winter dances, performances by travelling theatrical troupes, meetings of the Masons and the Odd Fellows, church festivals, lectures, concerts, panoramas, box-lunch auctions, debates, dramatic readings, private parties, the community Christmas party, and just about anything else that could afford the fee, which ranged from eight dollars for a half day to thirty for a day and an evening. The only thing it didn't host was trials: being a privately-owned building, its landlords, the fire company, had never been able to agree on whether or not to charge the county for them.

At the head of the stairs two dance marshals stood, requiring all male attendees to check their guns. Slim and Jess, having changed their clothes at Freddie's and spent a little time relaxing and reviewing the day over a beer and fortifying depleted energies at the free-lunch counter, arrived at half past seven, gracefully surrendered theirs, and leaned companionably against the wall, deciding which of the girls they wanted to dance with first. Like the streets outside, the room was festively decorated in autumn colors, and on the stage the band was already assembling—two or three fiddles, guitar, banjo, a shiny beetle of a mandolin, an accordion, a French harp, a flute, a clarinet, and a set of snare drums to give the rhythm.

"So how was that balloon, pard?" Slim asked.

"Pretty fine," Jess allowed. "Kinda late gettin' started, ten minutes maybe, but nobody kicked—it wasn't like it wasn't right there, so they knew the show was sure to get goin' in time, and meanwhile it give more folks a chance to get in to see it. Don't reckon I ever seen anythin' with so many colors in it all at once, not even a patchwork quilt or a Navajo blanket. It went up on a rope, a hundred foot or better, and the professor shot off fireworks from the basket while Miss Adrielle swung on a trapeze underneath. Then his assistant down on the ground pulled the knot out of the rope and he went soarin' up, and when he got to maybe five hundred foot, with Miss Adrielle swingin' on that trapeze all the time, she jumped, and opened her parachute, and come down just as light as a feather. Last I seen the balloon, it was driftin' off northeast, toward the mountains."

"Would've liked to've seen it," Slim admitted. "Maybe they'll have him again next year. You ever find Mike?"

"No, but I ain't worried. Laramie ain't big enough for him to get lost in. Daisy'n'him're likely home by now."

"Likely," the rancher agreed, nodding.

But they weren't.

**SR**

When somebody tapped on Slim's shoulder, midway through the redowa, his first, quite natural, thought was that it was some other gallant trying to cut in. But it was Ed Schuler, who was heading up the dance marshals tonight, and marshals weren't allowed to dance; that was why they rotated duty. Slim's instincts immediately sat up and opened their eyes. "What's up, Ed? Jess in trouble?"

"No, it's Miss Daisy. Over by the door. Says she's gotta talk to you, Slim," Ed replied.

_Daisy?!_ Slim thought, automatically reaching into the pocket of his wine-red satin waistcoat for the watch Jess had given him, his first Christmas with them. Its slender hands pointed to 8:47. "Sorry, Betsy," he apologized to his partner, "this is family business." And he followed Ed as the marshal diplomatically pushed his way through the circling crowd.

"Daisy!" he exclaimed as he reached the door. "What are you doin' still in town? I thought you were goin' to take Mike home."

"I was." The housekeeper, normally so calm and sensible, was clearly upset. "Slim, I can't find him!"

"Can't _find_ him!" Slim echoed. "How can you not find him? When did you see him last?"

"The same time you did, on the way to the livestock tent, after we left the circus," she replied. "He was going to go back to the buckboard with Jess, leave Twink and Buttons there, and then they'd go see the balloon ascension—you knew that. I didn't see any reason he shouldn't, and I had my entries to pack up, so I didn't object; I know he's always safe with Jess."

"Right," the rancher agreed. "Well, Jess sent him on ahead so he wouldn't miss any of the show, but Mike promised to go back to Dennison's right afterward if they couldn't find each other, which they didn't. All right, let's don't panic. Could he have fallen in with one of his friends from school and gone to visit and lost track of time?"

"I thought of that. It's why I'm still here so late. I've been to every house in town where I know he has a friend. He isn't at any of them."

Slim's lips tightened. "If he's playin' some kind of trick on us, Daisy—"

"No, Slim. I have a—a horrible feeling. The last time I had it was the day of the Battle of Chickamauga."

He remembered that her son had been killed there. "Let me find Jess."

**SR**

"He ain't at Dennison's? You're plumb sure, Daisy? When'd you get there?"

"It must have been about five," she said, obviously trying very hard to hang onto whatever was left of her composure. "It took a while to find someone to push the barrow. Slim saw me off and went to meet you—"

"Okay," Jess interrupted. "Take a deep breath and tell us what you found."

"I could see Twink right away," Daisy recalled— "she was lying in the bed, where you must have tied her, and the horses were hitched. But I couldn't see Mike or Buttons, not even when I looked in the buckboard—at first I thought he might be hiding, or just have crawled in to take a nap until I reached him; he's had a long, exciting day, after all. I called, and went around to the other hitched wagons, thinking he might have mistaken one of them for ours—though I didn't see how he could have; none of them had a fawn in it."

"She checked at all his friends' houses too, pard," Slim said. "She says he's not at any of 'em."

"Might be he went back to the circus with one of them other families, figurin' to see the show again, or just the menagerie, maybe," Jess mused. "He'd'a' had enough left to pay his own way in; he had them tips from that coachful of big spenders last week, come to a good ten bits. Still..." He was silent a minute, thinking. "Let's go up to the buckboard and start from there," he suggested. "You uncheck our guns, pard, just in case."

"Just in case of what?" Daisy demanded.

He gave her a not-entirely-genuine grin, which she pretended to accept, and said, "Just in case anybody asks us what we're doin' walkin' up the street half-dressed, Daisy." But there was a hard glint in the back of his deep-blue eyes, and Slim knew he had to be thinking of the fact that he was the one who'd given Mike permission to go on alone to the balloon ascension.

Dennison's pasture was emptying out as more and more people—primarily those who didn't approve of dancing; every town had its "Hell-Firers"—claimed their vehicles and started for home. "Hold it," Jess warned.

"What? What is it?" Slim demanded, his hand dropping to his Colt. He knew Jess often got "feelings" that something was askew—hunches born of observations he hadn't consciously known he was making. It was one of the things that had kept him alive his ten years alone.

"Nothin', I just don't want us messin' up any sign there might be. Can you find me a lantern, pard? And you and Daisy stay back here."

Slim quickly made his way back out to the street and hit Dennison's night stableman up for one of his spares. He was back in five minutes, the glowing light swinging from his hand. Jess took it and moved carefully toward the buckboard. Twink raised her head, ears shooting forward, but apparently recognized his scent or his steps and after a moment went back to chewing her cud.

Jess quartered slowly to and fro over the ground around the wagon, then began moving out from it in a systematic circling pattern. In the lantern's glow his expression was grave, intense, tightly focused, his eyes in constant motion, a steady blue flicker as he scanned the earth. At intervals he'd stop and lower himself to his heels or one knee, bracing on his empty hand while with the other he held the light close to whatever he'd discovered. Watching him, aware of Daisy's hand tightly clutching his arm, Slim marveled again, as he had on several occasions before, at how this fiery-tempered ex-gunslinger could also be a tracker as patient as any Indian; it was another example of the complicated puzzle that was Jess Harper.

As an experienced hunter, he knew what Jess was doing. Even among animals of the same species—even of the same size and gender—no two individuals leave exactly identical tracks, and with human beings the differences are even more plainly marked, thanks in part to the assorted idiosyncracies of whatever footwear they happen to have on. Any tracker knows how important it is to form an accurate, detailed concept of each foot's size, shape, and characteristics, so that he'll be able, thereafter, to distingush them from all other prints he finds; and this he does, often, by relying on a composite picture made up of a heel's impress here, a toe's there, and so on. A half-dozen fragmentary impressions may be all an expert needs for this purpose; from then on, the size and shape of the foot, length of stride, lameness, deviations from normal pointings of the toes, undue throwing of weight on any particular portion of the foot, degree of wear, projecting seams, worn-over heels, twisted toes, indented breaks, and the form, size, and character of sewn seams, repair patches, broken soles, and unmended tears, cracks, and holes will tell him who he's following.

After a time Jess came back, his face telling them nothing. "No blood," he said, "and no signs of a struggle. And Twink ain't skittish, you seen that yourselves. I found enough bits of footprints I reckon I can tell Mike's the next time I see it. Buttons was with him, that'll help too. It don't look like they been back here since they left me. They headed off down the street, behind the buildin's; Mike must'a' figured there wasn't no need to circle around, bein's it's almost a straight line from here to Barrett's pasture."

"So either somethin' happened to him between here and there," Slim mused slowly, "or else he took some kind of roundabout route back after the balloon went up and got into trouble on the way." He was trying to think of where there were abandoned wells on this side of town. Even if they were boarded over, with time the boards began to rot or dry out, and sometimes even a child's weight would be enough to break them.

"Long as he kept on like he was goin'," Jess said, "we oughtta be able to see at least some of his tracks; it ain't as tromped down back here as out on the street. C'mon." He set off, the lantern in his left hand, leaving his right free for his gun.

Laramie's few street lights, and lamps affixed to building walls, were confined to Front Street; back behind the buildings it was dark as the Pit, except when they passed the frosted- or leaded-glass rear window (invariably barred) of one of the saloons. Jess's lantern cast a spot of moving light that struggled to beat back the shadows. He moved slowly, lightly, the silver heel-caps of his boots and the Sunday band on his hat throwing off little gleams of moonlight. Slim and Daisy followed about ten steps back, to give him room.

Suddenly he stopped. "What in— Slim! Lookit here—the back door on the bank's open!"

"Stay here, Daisy," the rancher ordered quickly, and pulled his Colt, moving forward to join his friend.

Like all town buildings, the bank necessarily had a rear door, partly in case of fire, but mostly to allow workers discreet access to the outhouse. Since this door let into a building where a lot of money was kept, it had two interior bolts and no outside keyhole, and was backed by iron plates that would stop even a .44 slug at close range. It hung partway open now, about three or four inches, as if someone had meant to close it but hadn't quite finished the job. "Ferguson and his people wouldn't have done that, not with two days closed comin' up," Slim said quietly, referring to the vice-president/manager who ran the place day-to-day while Bob Wilson helmed the family ranch.

"No, they'd'a' checked all the doors, last thing," Jess agreed. He set the lantern down and drew his gun. "Best have a look."

The door let into an access corridor that ran alongside the two private offices (Bob's and Ferguson's) at the back of the building, then opened out into the space behind the counter. Jess immediately fell off quickly to the side, eyes probing the dark room. The green blinds on the front windows had been pulled down; only a vague diffuse glow filtered past their edges from the street. Jess's nose wrinkled—there was a faint, hot redolence of burned kerosene; a lamp had been lit in here, not long since. And something else...

"Jess." Slim's voice, low and quiet. "Over here."

The safe stood near the center point of the middle area, well away from any outside walls but backed against the inner one of the president's office; it was a tall, bulky, old-fashioned steel one, bolted to rings in the floor, with the manufacturer's name, _Kirby, Chicago, Ill., _lettered across the door. That door hung open, now, at a crazy angle, sagging on one hinge; an expensive mahogany desk, taken no doubt out of one of the offices, stood on its end against the street door, half concealed by the shadows. A choking odor of burned gunpowder still hung in the quiet, sheltered air. The ex-gunslinger moved to join his friend, surveying the scattered papers and empty cash drawers that lay on the floor. He didn't really need a light to know that if he looked inside he'd find the coin and currency gone. "You best find Mort," he said grimly.

"Yeah," Slim breathed. "But what about Mike?"

"That's why I said you get him," Jess replied. "I'll look around outside—might be I can find somethin' time you get back."

"Yeah. Okay. I'll be as quick as I can." Slim thrust his sixgun into the holster and headed for the back door at a jog-trot. Jess paused long enough to glance around one last time, then followed more slowly.

**SR**

Mort Corey looked grimly around, nodding to himself. "A man experienced with explosives can blow a safe so no one's likely to hear it," he said. "The right amount of powder affixed to the combination knob, the intervening door buttressed with a desk, and the noise is so effectively muffled that nobody'll be aware of what's happened, even in the dead of quiet night—still less today, with all the crowds and noise."

"How'd they get in?" Slim asked. "Not through that back door, it looks like it was unbolted from inside."

"If I had to guess? I'd say they made a wax impression of the lock out front, took it off with 'em, and filed out a key from a blank at their leisure. Probably one of 'em slipped in that way, then opened the back for his partners to carry in the powder."

"They sure picked a good time for it," the rancher observed heavily. "Better than seventy thousand just from our cattle drive, let alone anything else, and every cent of it gone." He was thinking of his own two thousand in particular, of the good Christmas he'd been looking forward to only that morning, the brood mares he'd hoped to buy.

"Maybe Jess has found something by now," Corey suggested. "Let's ask him."

The younger man met them at the back door, his face a cold mask. "Two of 'em, seems," he said. "One wearin' brogans, one what looks like Congress gaiters, fair new. That'n was tall, 'most as tall as you, pard—can tell by the length of his stride. Sign ain't fresh—five hours, maybe six. And—" a quick glance back over his shoulder toward Daisy, who was seated on a discarded crate about ten feet to the left of the door— "there was this." From the inside of his gray-trimmed black dress jacket he drew a blue satin rosette, lettered in gold: _Prettiest Wild Pet—Fourth Annual Laramie Roundup Day—1872._

"Twink's prize," Slim said in a flat voice.

"Yeah. Could be Mike just dropped it by mistake—when he was with me he kept pullin' them ribbons out and lookin' at 'em." But the ex-gunslinger's eyes were hard, and the rancher knew he didn't believe it. "Could be not."

"You think he might've come by here in time to see whoever did it?" Mort asked.

"Might," Jess agreed, still grim. "Tracks'd be about the right age for'im to've passed by as they was comin' out." Suddenly his head came up and he lifted one hand in a clear signal for silence. "You hear that?"

"Hear what?" asked Mort, who had twenty years on Slim and more on Jess.

"I do," Slim agreed. "But what is it?"

"Sounds like—" Jess began, and then turned on his heel, striding fast across the open space toward the bank's woodshed and double outhouse. At the former he paused, his ear against the crack of the door, then quickly turned the wooden latch that held it. The light of his lantern fell on a fine-grained light-brown sack that lay on the floor, writhing, emitting a whining sound. Jess dropped to his knees, fingers deftly unfastening the length of heavy rope that held it closed. A familiar black-and-tan head popped out as he pulled the cloth aside.

"Buttons!" Mort exclaimed over his shoulder.

"Yeah. Buttons," Slim agreed. "And sure as sin he didn't tie himself up and close himself in here. Somebody did it so he wouldn't be runnin' around free, makin' a fuss."

"Like he would, if he was tryin' to find Mike," Jess added. Their eyes met, and each knew this was confirmation of Jess's earlier guess. "They got him, whoever they are."

**SR**

_They'd very nearly run head-on into each other, Mike and the two men who'd cleaned out the bank; he'd just been passing the back door when it suddenly opened and one of them stepped out, a sack over his shoulder and a Smith & Wesson American .44 in the other hand. But the bank robber had been primed for trouble, and Mike hadn't; quickly dropping his sack, he reached out, snared the boy by the collar of his shirt, and yanked him up off the ground. Mike writhed and kicked, unable to holler for the big hand clamped over his mouth. Buttons backed away, growling._

_A second gun cocked, and another man, taller, moved up alongside Mike's captor. "Shut him up, boy, or I'll shoot him," he said._

_The muffling hand lifted, and Mike, thinking only of his pet's safety, quickly hissed, "Buttons! Quiet! Stay!"_

_Buttons ceased growling at once and stood still, though his body remained tense, his attention fixed on the men. The second, Mike saw, was wearing a chocolate clawhammer coat above yellowish striped trousers, with a flowered satin waistcoat, much like Slim's best one, underneath it, and a blue satin tie at his throat; his hat was a fawn beaver, long out of fashion but still impressive. His gun was an old Root's Patent Model Colt, converted from percussion—only .28 or .31, but quite enough to kill a dog, or a man, at this range. He too carried a sack over his shoulder._

"_You better let go of me," Mike warned them. "You better let go. You hurt me and Slim'n'Jess'll never stop lookin' for you." Already he knew, from the stories he'd heard and his own personal experience, something of the frightening tenacity of his two guardians._

_The man in the beaver looked him over—the neat little burnished half-boots, the black cowboy-style hat that had fallen to the ground when the other one scooped him up, the long, slightly flared, fine-striped trousers and drop-shouldered, button-cuffed calico shirt. "Think so, do you?" he asked. "And who would they be, boy?"_

"_They run Sherman Ranch. I live there. And Sheriff Corey's their friend, he deputizes 'em sometimes."_

_The man tipped a look at his partner—shorter, heavier-built, with a ragged mustache; he wore a faded blue flannel shirt and stout kersey-cloth trousers. "Sounds like a person of importance, Rix," he mused._

"_So what do we do with him?" Rix demanded. "We can't turn him loose, he'll run to the first grown-up he can find. And we can't stand around, we've got a schedule."_

"_That's true," the other agreed. He tucked his Root's into his waistband and reached into his jacket for a big, delicately blue-striped handkerchief and a small bottle made of clear glass. Deftly he pulled the stopper, held the wadded kerchief over the open mouth of the bottle, tipped it, waited for about five seconds, and then reached out and slapped the cloth over Mike's face. Reflexively the boy tried to draw breath, and his head spun. He slumped in Rix's arms, unconscious._

"_Take care of the dog," the man in the beaver ordered, "but don't kill it. We can't risk a shot being heard."_

"_What about him?" Rix asked, lowering Mike's inert form to the ground and reaching under his short Mackinaw coat. Buttons instinctively moved toward his master, and Rix pounced, grabbing the dog by his scruff and stuffing him into another sack drawn from inside the coat. Whipping a length of rope around the struggling parcel, he tied it off with a sailor's knot._

"_The chloroform should keep him quiet for a few hours," the tall man said. "But we can't leave him here to describe us." He grinned. "I think we'll just give him a free ride. Get the barrow and we'll throw him in with the moneybags."_

"_But what if somebody sees him?"_

"_They won't if we put him in another sack. These rubes wouldn't know a kid in a sack from a sandbag of ballast. All we have to do is get him in the gondola, after that we're home free."_

**SR**

"We're not dealin' with your common everyday run of bank robbers," Slim observed. "Most of them just barge in with guns by daylight, grab any loose cash they can, and ride out fast, shootin' off their guns to make everybody run for cover. Whoever did this... they had some skill, and they were planners."

They'd taken Daisy and Buttons over to her dressmaker's house to wait for them; this was looking like it might turn into a long night. Now they were out back of the bank again, reviewing the few clues they had and trying to decide where to go next. "Likely didn't figure on you boys finding that back door open and making the connection with Mike," Corey speculated. "If it hadn't been for that, we might've gone on looking for the boy without having any idea the bank had been hit."

"Yeah," said Jess in a low, soft growl, "and they reckon that gives 'em time to get out of town nice an' easy, without kickin' up a fuss. C'mon, pard."

"Where?" Slim demanded immediately. "Jess? What's goin' on in that head of yours now?"

"Thinkin' I know somebody that could'a' done this," Jess replied, not stopping. "Somebody with skill, like you said. He done eight years for robbery—not the armed kind, but like this—back in the '50's. It was an express office, but the same kinda thing, with powder. Dang fool," he muttered, "why'd I ever believe him? Talkin' about how a man can always make a new start—"

"Jess! Will you stop talkin' in code?"

The ex-gunslinger paused; by this time he'd led them down the nearest alley to the street, and was standing in the mouth of it, piercing eyes scanning the scene before him. The independent operators—the photographer, the shooting gallery, the refreshment stands and the rest—had closed down for the night, and the only sound and lights came from the saloons—and, distantly, the ongoing dance at the Fire Department. "There," Jess hissed, and headed up the street toward a big box wagon parked parallel with the boardwalk, with a trail unit, temporarily unhitched, turned around so its tail end faced the leader's, a gap of perhaps ten feet left between. A pair of kerosene flares, not lit, still stood on either side of the wagon's outboard side, their sharpened ends thrust into the dirt surface.

"Jess!"

"He's too mad to hear you, Slim," Corey observed. "Whatever this is, he thinks somebody's turned on him, personally. We'd better catch up before he kills 'em for it."

Slim knew, only too well, that his friend was entirely capable of doing exactly that, if he was in a white-hot enough fury. He stretched his long legs, letting Mort follow as he could. Jess was standing on the box wagon's hanging steps now, hammering on the door. "Doc! Melly! Wake up! This is Jess Harper! You get out here now or I'll shoot this door in!"

There was a sound of muffled exclamations from inside the wagon-box, several thuds, and then the door was opened from within, the warm light of a kerosene lamp spilling out through the opening. As Slim came around and Jess dropped off the steps and fell back toward the trail unit, flipping the edge of his jacket behind the butt of his Colt, he saw that it was being held by a tall man—_'most as tall as you, pard,_ he remembered Jess saying, and this man certainly fit that description—of past fifty, hollow-eyed and cadaverous, hair gone mostly gray, his long face made longer by a neat torpedo beard, wearing a many-hued Oriental dressing-gown thrown hastily over a long white nightshirt. Next to him, a pearl-handled Colt thrust through the waistband of his tight fawn-colored trousers, was a redheaded young man of about Jess's size, but probably a good three or four years younger. Behind them in turn Slim could make out the wide eyes of a very dark Negro in long red underwear—and a taffy-haired young woman with a dark red wool robe gathered at the waist by a knotted cord.

"Jess, my lad!" the tall man exclaimed, in a rich, sonorous voice that wouldn't have seemed out of place for a trial attorney. "Melly told me of your meeting earlier, but what are you doing trying to break into my wagon?"

"Don't treat me like I was one of your gulls, Doc," Jess snapped. _"Where is he?"_

"Let me handle this, Jess," Corey interrupted, pushing past the furious Texan. "Dr. Pennybuck, I'm Mort Corey, sheriff here. My office issued you a show permit this morning, or so my deputy told me."

"Yes, that's correct, Sheriff. Surely there's no difficulty with it? I was assured that ten dollars was the only tax we'd have to pay, even for two days in town."

"That's true," Mort agreed, "but there's been an... incident... that Mr. Harper, here, seems to think might connect to you. Now, I can wake up the Justice of the Peace and get a search warrant, but I'd a lot rather you'd freely admit me and my... deputies... to make a search of your wagon."

"For what?" demanded the redhead with the Colt.

"For somethin' like ninety thousand dollars taken out of our bank," Slim told him, "and a young boy who might just have seen the people that did it. A boy who happens to be under my—our—legal guardianship." He still wasn't quite sure why Jess had led them here, but he trusted Jess to know what he was doing.

"Yeah," Jess grated, "and that money was taken by somebody that knew how to open a safe with powder and never let anybody outside hear 'em doin' it. Like you, Doc."

The young woman gasped. "Jess!"

"Don't, Melly," Jess commanded, in a tone midway between rebuke and disappointment. "Just... don't. It's even worse, if you was part of it—you knew Mike was family to me."

Dr. Pennybuck, as Mort had called him, drew himself up and gathered his dressing-gown around his lean form with an air of offended dignity. "Please come in, Sheriff. I and mine have nothing to hide."

Mort stepped up into the wagon's interior; Slim paused just a moment to press Jess's shoulder, then followed. It was surprisingly roomy, and as neatly organized as the grub box on a chuck wagon. Along one wall were three built-in bunks, a double set and a single, the latter apparently convertible to a settee; wide drawers were tucked under both. Opposite was a regular (if small) kitchen stove, permanently installed, with a run of counters and cabinets alongside. Beyond the bunks was a fold-down table and benches, stacks of drawers and shelves opposite, and then, at right angles to the keel of the wagon, a pair of half-height bookcases, apparently marking off a smaller second room at the front of the vehicle, with hand-embroidered draperies of intricate stitchery and elaborate floral designs hung up behind them to make a partition, drawn partly aside. Slim noticed a length of highly-colored Brussels carpet on the floor, a wall mirror in a fretwork frame, several Currier & Ives prints, a long mahogany barometer; a couple of cats peering curiously out from between the curtains; knickknacks and china in hanging cabinets, tea-leaf pattern ironstone china stored above the counters, colorful quilts on the bunks, a large hanging library lamp in the center of the ceiling, its shade made of colored glass with a border set with stones and prisms of the same. He'd never thought of travelling folk as wanting to make a comfortable home for themselves.

He heard Jess's light steps coming aboard behind him. "Where is he, Doc?" his friend repeated. "And where's that money? You might just as well give it up now—remember, I was with you long enough to get to know this rig pretty dadgum well."

"Jess!" Corey's voice wasn't loud, but there was a snap in it. "Settle down or I'll have to ask Slim to take you out! This is an official search, and I'm in charge of it."

"Shadrach," the old man said evenly, "kindly allow these—gentlemen—to examine the cargo bins while the sheriff searches the interior. And make sure they have the opportunity to assure themselves that the trail unit has nothing of interest in it."

Slim looked to Mort for confirmation and received the lawman's brief nod as Shadrach, the black man, lifted a large ring of keys off a peg beside the door. "Come on, Jess," he said quietly, "there's not enough room in here for all of us."

Jess shook his hand off, glaring at the old man and the woman, and then sullenly followed him back down the hanging steps.

**SR**

Shadrach unlocked an amazing assortment of drawers and bins built in under the main wagon-box and the trail unit, including a boot beneath the driver's seat. They held puppets, boxes of eight-ounce flint-glass bottles and four-ounce screw-top pots, camping gear, lanterns, kerosene torches, all sorts of things, but no money. On the roof, roped to a luggage rack much like those on stagecoaches and covered by a big waterproof tarpaulin, were a large and a small tent, a folding table and chairs, a camp stove, and a number of trunks, none of which held anything they were looking for. The trail unit was populated by a dozen dogs, which looked at the searchers with bright, curious eyes, but made no move to attack them; set in under its roof were racks for balls, hoops, folding steps and platforms, and other performance equipment. Jess pointed out some heavy clamps on the outboard side of the wagon, and Shadrach unfastened them to reveal that the whole side swung down like the endgate on a chuck wagon, creating a stage. There was space enough between it and the wagon's frame and genuine side to have packed quite a lot of money in—but no money.

Mort stepped down from the interior and joined them. "Nothing," he said. "No money, no sign of powder, no sacks like that one Buttons was in, and no Mike. Did find these, though—Dr. Pennybuck admits they're his." He held out a pair of Congress gaiters with elastic inserts at the sides. "You said one of the robbers wore shoes like 'em."

"Yeah," Jess agreed, and turned them over eagerly. Slim saw the light go out of his eyes. "Yeah," he repeated, "but these ain't them. They're gettin' run over at the side, and this'n's been half-soled. Them ones that made the tracks behind the bank didn't have neither of them tells to 'em." He handed them back and looked up at the wagon with an air of deep sadness. "Sorry, Mort. Reckon I led you on a wild-goose chase. It's just I was so dadgum sure—"

Corey didn't ask if he was sure of the shoes; he knew Jess was one of the best white trackers to be found in this part of Wyoming. "We all make mistakes, Jess."

"Yeah," Jess sighed, "and this'n's lost me a good friendship. And we're right plumb back where we started at. What do we do now, search the whole town? Time we get that done they could have that money buried six feet deep. Mike too."

"No," Slim told him, his tone intense. _"No, _Jess. I won't believe they've killed him. There's a big difference between cleanin' out a bank and murderin' a child. Kept him for a hostage, maybe—but people who operate like these, instead of makin' a daylight raid, do it as much to avoid violence as anything else."

"Besides that," Mort put in, "you two know the people in these parts almost as well as I do. Can you think of any who'd have had the skills to break that safe? _I_ sure can't."

"It would almost have to've been someone who's moved in recently," Slim suggested thoughtfully. "Someone, maybe, who'd done this kind of thing before. They come into a new town, rent a house or a room, scope the bank out, do the job, then wait a couple of weeks or a month and casually move on. If they've kept to themselves, you might not even miss 'em for a while."

"Gotta be somethin' we're missin'," Jess insisted. "Somethin'... it's like it's right under our noses..."

"Jess." A woman's voice, soft and quiet. All three men turned quickly to face the wagon. It was the taffy-haired young woman in the dark red robe.

"Melly." Jess's response was low, a little shaky; he looked everywhere but at her face. "I reckon whatever you got to say, I got it comin'. I know I messed up, and I don't ask nor expect that you'll forgive me. It's just—Mike is—"

"He's your little brother," she said. "I know. And you've lost little brothers before, and you can't bear to go through it another time." She looked past him, to Slim. "And you'd be his big brother, wouldn't you? Slim Sherman? He showed me your picture, earlier today."

"Yes, ma'am." Slim politely removed his hat. "I'm sorry, I don't think I got your name." _You know about his_ _first family?_ he was thinking. _About how they died? Then either you've known him a very long time, or he's trusted you more than just about anyone in his life before he found us._

"Melisande Pennybuck, but you might as well call me Melly; _he_ does." She walked toward them, not heeding Jess's abashed look. "You know," she went on, "the medicine business is all about fooling people and making them like it. The regular doctors don't have much good to say about us, but really, we're not out to harm anyone. Pa may not have any legitimate right to call himself a doctor, but if I had the money to bet, I'd bet you every cent that was in your bank that you'd be a lot likelier to find narcotics in the patent medicines off the store shelves than in what we sell. We try not to carry anything that's genuinely harmful, because we have direct contact with our customers, and we want to be able to come back next year and not get tarred and feathered for having caused someone's death. The patent-medicine manufacturers don't have to think about that. People cheerfully pay us a dollar—or more, if they buy several items—for the nostrum and an evening's entertainment rather than pay far more to a real doctor who offers no entertainment at all, and probably can't cure their aches and pains anyway. So who's the real quack?"

"I never thought about it quite that way, Miss Melly," Slim admitted, "but it makes a lot of sense the way you put it. Only... I don't want you to take this the wrong way, there's been enough of that tonight, but... what does it have to do with the reason we came here?"

"Just that we're hardly the only strangers in town today," she observed. "We just happen to be the only ones with a... a known dubious past. Yes, Pa robbed an express office, when I was very young. Yes, he served time for it. You see, Jess," she added, "that's why he told you that it was never too late for a man to turn his life around and make a new start. Because he knows just how true it is."

"I reckon I do too... now," Jess agreed, though he was still having a hard time meeting her eyes. "I reckon what I gotta do next is learn to try to _think _sometimes, and not just jump to conclusions."

"Just what are you suggesting, Miss Pennybuck?" Mort asked. "That we search all the itinerants in town? There must be at least twenty of them, not even counting the circus. And how many of them would have room to hide a young boy as well as the stolen money? Most of their wagons are no bigger than yours, and some are smaller. Apart from that, unless Mike was drugged or badly injured, how could they guarantee he wouldn't make enough noise to get someone's suspicions up?"

"They could guarantee it easily enough," Melly suggested, "if they weren't in town any more."

Mort frowned, but Jess suddenly lit up. "That's it!" he half shouted. _"That's_ why I never caught sight of Mike at the balloon launch. That's _it, _pard! They've got him on the dadgum balloon!"

Slim's jaw dropped. "Jess—I know how you feel, how much you want to find him, but—"

"No, Slim," Mort interrupted, "this time, Jess may really have hit on it. That balloon had a completely legitimate excuse to leave town—right under everyone's noses, ours included. All they'd have to do is somehow sneak him aboard—"

"And they was late gettin' off!" Jess added. "You remember, hardcase, I told you at the dance—they was maybe ten minutes behind time. If they caught him outside the bank—it'd take a few minutes to deal with him and Buttons and decide what to do—they'd wanta make sure he wouldn't run straight to us and tell what he'd seen, give Mort their descriptions..."

"That's true," the rancher agreed slowly. "He must have seen their faces... but how would they have gotten him on it?"

"You didn't see it, and I did," Jess reminded him. "It's got a basket of what looks like wood, solid through—you can't see anything that's inside it. And—" He paused, his eyes alight with memory. "The assistant—the one that stayed down on the ground to let the rope go; just before Murdine and his daughter come out of their wagon, he come along trundlin' a wheelbarrow and throwed two or three sacks on board, fair size ones. Kinda brown, same as the one we found Buttons in. I reckoned maybe it was food supplies or somethin', for the trip—but what if it wasn't? What if one or two of them sacks had the money in it, and one had Mike?"

"Holy—" Slim began, and whirled to face Corey. "Mort, he's right. Those free balloons use sand for ballast; they put it aboard in bags, and pour it out when they need to get altitude. Most people out this way don't see enough balloons, or know enough about how they operate, to know how big the bags should be—or shouldn't."

"That's why the dang thing was only gonna be here one day!" Jess added, getting more excited with every moment. "So they could take the bank and get gone and have a good full day before anybody found out what'd happened. Shoot, if they'd shut that back door all the way, we'd'a' never even guessed somebody might'a' _taken _Mike—"

"That's true. When you found the sign at the buckboard, I was even thinkin' he might've fallen into an old dry well somewhere," Slim agreed. "Mort—we've got to get down to the circus ground. _Now."_

**SR**

The Merrill in Merrill & McCallum was a woman, Amity by name; her late father had established the show. McCallum was her husband; he'd been the senior Merrill's partner for several years before marrying her. Sitting in their caravan wagon just behind the portable ticket booth, they listened as the three men laid out what they knew. "We've had your outfit coming through here a good number of years now, Miss Amity," Mort finished, "and I know it's what folks in your line call a 'Sunday-school show;' you don't allow the kind of shifty grifters and gamblers that make some circuses really notorious for their clever cheating and shortchanging. So I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and admit that maybe you didn't know just what you were dealing with in this Professor Murdine. But I'll still need your help if my deputies here and I are to have any chance of laying our hands on him and maybe saving that boy from a bad situation."

"Well, my Lord, Sheriff, you just ask and you'll have whatever we've got to give," Amity Merrill replied. "He joined up with us in Albuquerque, and I do have to say that his ascensions have been drawing better crowds than we've seen since we first came out West. I had no clue he'd had anything like this in mind."

"I'm thinking, maybe, when it gets to be light, I'll send some telegrams back along your route, and see if they've had anything like this happen in any of the other towns you've played this season," Mort said. "I'll need a copy of your itinerary. Now, where would he have gone from here—supposing he didn't intend to just take off with his loot?"

"Our next date's in Cheyenne—that's the close of the season," she said. "We'll put the show on the cars there, and head back East to winter quarters. He's to meet us there and do an ascension, one day only, same as here. That's forty-five or fifty miles; with the wagons and the elephants it'll take us a good three days to catch up with him."

"What will he do in the meantime?" Slim asked. "I mean, what's his usual routine?"

"He'll find an open space outside the town and bring the balloon down," Amity replied. "He can do it single-handed if he has to, not like setting up for a flight; that takes at least two men, in the beginning at least, because of unloading, and starting the gas generator, and laying out the bag, and putting in the stakes, and all. He'll rent a wagon, or more likely a buckboard, and hire somebody to help him get the basket and the folded gasbag aboard, drive into town, and find a stable or a shed or someplace where he can put them—someplace that can be locked, if he can; he has a good padlock of his own that he carries with him. Then he'll take a room and wait for us."

"How long till he gets there?" Corey wanted to know.

"He should make it by dawn, if he gets the right air currents. The wind moves at different speeds, you know, according to the level he's at. He could probably get there sooner, but he needs proper light so he can see where he's setting down."

"Fifty miles," Jess muttered. "On horseback the three of us can make it in a day."

"What about the people with him?" the sheriff asked next. "How many are there?"

"Just two," said McCallum. "His daughter, who does the trap act just before he lets the balloon go, and his assistant—fellow named Rix, drives their wagon, looks after the generator, that kind of thing."

"They'd know where he was plannin' to be," Slim guessed. "Just in case, like you said, Mort, he means to just drop the circus and make off with what he took."

"Yeah, but he has no real reason to do that," Corey pointed out. "He doesn't know yet that we've found out about the robbery. I've got a feeling the reason that back door was left open was that when they met up with Mike and Buttons, he and this Rix—that was probably the second set of tracks Jess found—got distracted and forgot they hadn't pulled it shut. No, I think he'll just go along, keep to the original plan. We might do best to let Rix and the daughter follow the show like nothing had happened. You and your people can keep an eye on 'em, can't you, Miss Amity?"

"We can, and we will," Amity Merrill vowed. "We'll put them in the middle of the line, with wagons in front and behind, and I'll have a couple of riders stay close, too. But what about your boy, Mr. Sherman, and the money?"

"Soon as it gets light enough to see," Slim replied, "we'll head out for Cheyenne. We'll need a description, just in case he decides to use a different name."

"I can give you better than that," Amity told him, and got up to rummage through a large trunk. "Here," she said presently. "He sells signed copies of these at each ascension, with the admissions, for fifty cents extra." They were paper prints made from albumen plates, in the popular _carte de visite_ format. They portrayed a tall, lean-built but broad-shouldered man—very much the same build as Slim himself—dressed in a dark-colored clawhammer coat above lighter striped trousers, with a flowered waistcoat and an ornate tie, topped off with what appeared to be a beaver hat. He had a rather long, saturnine face with shrewd-looking eyes and a wide mouth, the latter half hidden by a dragoon mustache, and sharply trimmed sideburns down to the edge of his jaw.

"Thank you, Miss Amity, these should be a big help," Corey told her. He handed one each to Jess and Slim and kept the third for himself. "Now I think we'd better get a few hours of sleep, if we can; we've got a long day ahead of us."

**SR**

_Mike regained consciousness with a strange feeling in his head, like it was stuffed with cotton, and a dry mouth. He felt disoriented, and at first he thought the gentle swaying that accompanied his sensations was part and parcel of whatever had happened. But what had happened? His memories were vague, shadowy, and his stomach felt queasy. He was leaning back against something that felt firm, but had a definite slope to it, like the back of a Morris chair. Remembering what Jess had taught him about waking up in uncertain situations, he didn't move at first; he let his eyes range slowly around, trying to get an idea of where he was. His legs were doubled up in front of him, tied together at the ankles, and it felt like there was a length of cord linking them to his hands, which seemed to be fastened behind him. He was sitting in an open oblong space, about four feet wide and a dozen long, and above the side edges of it, which stood about as high as Slim's waist, he could see darkness and stars. And above even that he could just make out a great billowy amorphous shape, in colors. A small bull's-eye lantern illuminated the space, and by it the other person present—a man in a beaver hat and beautiful fur-trimmed coat—was carefully studying a sheet of paper. The man looked up, as if he felt Mike's eyes on him, and smirked. "Well, so you're sitting up and taking notice, are you, boy? I was beginning to wonder if I'd misjudged your weight and given you a bit too much." He reached in under his coat and fished out an old stem-winding watch. "Maybe I did at that. Past ten. I'd figured you'd be back with me by nine, at the latest."_

_Mike wasn't frightened exactly—he didn't get the same feeling of uncaring malice from this well-dressed man that he'd had, say, when he crouched in the brush and watched the Indians swarming over his folks' camp; but he was puzzled and uncertain, trying to work out just where he was, how he'd gotten there and what might be in the future. "Can I—can I have some water?" he asked._

"_Not a problem." The man eased over sideways from his sitting position on the other side of the space, and drew to him a canvas water bag, about big enough for a couple of gallons. "In fact, I'll go you one better. This is lemonade, from the circus. It'll moisten your throat better than water would, and maybe clear out some of that taste in your mouth besides." He uncapped the bag and carefully poured out some of its contents into a pint tin cup, then held the vessel to Mike's lips, steadying the boy's head with his other hand. The lemonade was a bit warm, but tart and refreshing, and Mike drank it down gratefully._

"_Now," proceeded the man in the beaver, "you've got questions, which is to be expected. First of all, don't try to get up in a hurry, not that you really can; Rix hitched your ankles to your wrists so he could get you into one of our gunnysacks and make it look like it was just another sandbag. We're on board my balloon, and you don't want to jostle the gondola, especially since I'd estimate we're a good half a mile straight up."_

"_Balloon?" Mike repeated, and then light dawned and he remembered the encounter outside the bank. "You're Professor Murdine, from the circus!"_

"_That's right. And before you ask, we're on our way to Cheyenne, where I'm supposed to meet it. It should get there about four days after we do; it has two more performances in Laramie before it can get on the road. And until it does, you're going to have to stay my guest, because I can't have you running to the Cheyenne marshal and telling him where we met."_

"_I'll holler," Mike warned._

"_You can," said Murdine, "but the way I plan to work things out, it won't do you any good." He folded up his paper and tucked it into his coat. "Cold, are you?"_

"_Kinda." Mike didn't like admitting that much, but the fact was, he wasn't very comfortable, and he knew that right now, it was all up to him. Slim and Jess might not have any idea what had happened to him; if he was going to get out of this and tell somebody that maybe the Laramie bank had been robbed—why else would anybody be sneaking out the back door of it, armed, when it was closed?—he'd have to take care of himself till he could find an opportunity to get away. Prob'ly the only time in my life I'll ever get to fly in a balloon, he thought out of nowhere, and I'm not gonna get any chance to enjoy it._

"_And that's to be expected too," said Murdine. "Temperature drops by three and a half degrees for every thousand feet you rise above the surface of the Earth, which means that if it's thirty-eight degrees in Laramie, it's about twenty-seven up here. I've made ascensions on the Fourth of July with the mercury at ninety, and by the time I got as high up as I could comfortably go, it would be close to freezing." He produced a buffalo robe from the heap of supplies to his left and tucked it around Mike's body, making sure to slip it in under his feet and behind his back. "I'd offer you something to eat," he added, "but I think we'd both be better off waiting on that till we get solid ground under our feet again."_

_Mike looked at him suspiciously. "Why are you bein' so nice to me? Ain't you a bank robber?"_

"_Never said I wasn't," Murdine replied, "but I'm a father too. I don't hold you any malice, boy—you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had to make provisions to guarantee that you wouldn't queer the deal, that's all." He grinned. "You see, it's not just your bank in Laramie that I meant to clean out. Cheyenne's the last stop on the circus itinerary for this season; it's twice as big and probably four or five times as rich, what with the Territorial capitol, and being the social center for every successful cattleman in Wyoming. Rix and I intend to make a withdrawal from their bank too, before I do my ascension."_

**SR**

Leaving Mort's temporary deputy to watch over the town and dispatch telegrams along the back trail of the circus, Corey, Slim, and Jess were on the trail as soon as it was light enough to see, about a quarter past six. They stopped briefly at Sherman Ranch to alert Ben to the fact that he'd have to remain in charge for at least another day or two, then started up into the mountains, picking up Crow Creek near its source and descending toward the plain where Cheyenne stood. They scanned the sky ahead for the balloon, but saw no sign of it.

Mort was concerned for Mike, of course, but he was also worried about the stolen money. Even though the bank carried insurance, it might not be enough to make up such a huge loss, and that would make for a lot of suffering in and around Laramie this winter. Worse, Cheyenne was only a little more than ten miles from the boundary separating the Wyoming and Colorado Territories, and if Murdine got over that with his loot, all Mort would be able to do would be send out flyers: officers could only make arrests within their own states and territories, and there was little co-operation between those in different ones. With no centralized national law enforcement, outlaws knew that if they could get out of town unscathed, there was a good, or at least an even, chance that they could elude the inevitable posse, and no legal penalty for transporting stolen goods across jurisdictional lines or fleeing over them to avoid prosecution. A sheriff didn't even have a right to arrest someone in another sheriff's county—he had to get the local law to co-operate with him, and sometimes, indeed all too often, it wasn't interested. Fortunately Mort knew the marshal in Cheyenne to be a good, honest, conscientious officer, who knew Slim and Jess as well as himself personally, and the fact that there'd been a boy kidnapped might help them gain his assistance too.

If it hadn't been for Mike's disappearance, he reflected, this would have been a nearly perfect crime. As Slim had pointed out, most bank robbers, having come out of the war and the border troubles that had preceded it, operated like guerrillas, in fast, noisy raids intended to confuse the witnesses. A stealthy burglary like this one could easily have gone undiscovered till tomorrow, when the bank reopened, and then he and his posse would have wasted time looking for tracks that weren't there. Meanwhile Murdine would have been in Cheyenne, waiting for the circus to reach him, and nobody there would have had any reason to think he was anything other than what he claimed to be. Long before they could have reasoned out the truth—if they ever had—he'd have been two or three states away.

They kept up a steady trail gait, alternating walk-trot-walk-lope where the ground was level, dismounting and leading on the steeper upslopes as they crossed the mountains and slacking reins on the down- so the horses could pick their own way. At midday they paused to rest the animals and build a small fire for hot coffee and canned pork and beans supplemented with sourdough-and-beef sandwiches. The temperature on the flat was probably about fifty, but in mid-October there was a nip to the air and the wind was starting to kick up; all three men were glad of their sheep-lined saddle coats.

The sun was just setting when they hit the outskirts of Cheyenne, a prosperous cattle-raising community and political center of about 1270 persons, not counting the outdwellers who used it as a supply point. They put their horses up, found a modest hotel where they could get rooms, and went looking for Marshal Ives. They had to track him to his home, but when he learned what had brought them to his town he promised his full co-operation. He told them he'd seen nothing of Murdine or of anything that might have been the deflated balloon, but of course his was a larger town than Laramie, and unless he was in exactly the right place at the right time, he could miss seeing a particular person or object in it for days or even weeks. "What do you figure he'll do with the boy?" he asked.

"Supposing he plans to stay long enough for the circus to catch up with him, and to do his show here," Mort speculated, "he'll have to make sure Mike can't go running to you and report him. And I think that's what Mike would do; he's used to a situation where the local law can be trusted to do the right thing, where it knows him and trusts the people he lives with. But there's always the possibility that Murdine has some alternate plan in mind. He might have arranged with Rix and his daughter to meet him somewhere outside the Territory to split up the loot. In that case he could have loaded the balloon onto a train and headed East already. I don't think he'd leave it; it's good cover and probably cost a fair bit of money."

"If he did that," Ives mused, "he could've crated the boy up and put him on the train with his gear. He'd probably plan to let him go a few towns down the line; it might take quite a while for the kid to find someone who'd listen to him and not just think he was some kind of runaway spinning a tall tale. All right. I'll go down to the station first thing in the morning and ask if anyone's put a shipment of the right character on any of the trains today. If I get a yes, I'll start telegraphing inquiries into Nebraska; we might not get your bank money back, but if you're right, if this fellow did the job the way he did partly to avoid violence, we'll still have a decent chance of finding the boy. Meanwhile, you three have pictures of the man; you can split up and see if he's to be found."

As the trio from Laramie walked back toward the center of town to get something to eat, Slim quietly fell in beside his best friend, who'd been silent and inward for most of the day, his features set in the cold, unstirring mask he wore when he was about to go into a fight. "Jess... it's not your fault, you know. You couldn't have guessed what Murdine had planned, or that he'd be leavin' the bank just in time to run into Mike."

"I reckon there's a part of me knows that," the younger man admitted. "But the judge put him in my care as much as in yours, pard, and that's a job I take plumb serious. If I'd been with him, I could'a'—"

"I know what you _would _have, if you'd had any warning at all," Slim interrupted. "But odds are they were armed too. You wouldn't have wanted to get in a shootin' scrape with Mike there, would you?"

Jess hesitated a moment before he replied. "No," he agreed presently, "no, I wouldn't. I see what you're sayin'. They might'a' even made me hand him over as a hostage, all the same, so's I'd keep quiet long enough for 'em to get out of town."

"That's just what I _am_ sayin'," Slim told him, thinking, _And we'd all have been lucky if they hadn't also caved your skull in with somethin' so you couldn't describe 'em. _ "We're dealin' with a clever man here, pard. You know the way a grizzly will backtrack itself to see if it's bein' followed, and come on you when you're not expectin' it? I can see Murdine as bein' smart that way. The best advantage we have is that he probably won't expect the robbery to be discovered before tomorrow morning, and even then, odds would be against anyone connectin' Mike's disappearance to it."

"Wherever he's stayin' at, supposin' he's still here," Jess mused, "he won't have Mike with him, I reckon. Too much chance Mike'd just slip away. Murdine could try to pass him off as a son, or somethin', but if Mike started kickin' up a fuss, even if nobody believed him, it'd attract attention, and there'd be them that'd remember."

"I think you're right," Slim agreed. "But I have to believe he hasn't done Mike any harm. I keep thinkin' about how he worked this out, with the powder, and smugglin' the money on board the balloon. This isn't a man who's interested in sheddin' blood, even by accident."

Jess sighed quietly. "I hope that's true. I keep tellin' myself it is, that it makes sense. But if it ain't—if he's—if Mike—" He couldn't say the words.

All Slim could do was put a hand on the lean shoulder and squeeze, trying to tell Jess that he understood.

**SR**

In the end, it was Slim who found the fugitive, about midmorning of the next day. Murdine had checked into a decent middle-grade hotel some twenty-four hours earlier, signing in under his own name. The desk clerk recognized the photograph of him at once, and said that he'd been alone, with one carpetbag. Slim asked if it had seemed heavy, and the clerk said he didn't think so. Working closely, as he did, with the stage line and the express company, Slim had developed a familiarity with the size of various kinds of money shipments. _The paper money wouldn't weigh too much,_ the rancher told himself. _What would there be of it, maybe sixty, seventy thousand? A lot of it would be in smaller bills, fives, tens, twenties, fifties—bulky, but still, if it came to twenty pounds I'd be surprised. That's easily portable. But they took the coin too, and even just a thousand in double eagles weighs ten—in silver it's over sixty. Besides, even in a halfway decent hotel like this one, the locks are usually simple mortise jobs that any key in the place, or at worst a ten-cent store key, will open; it'd be too vulnerable to a sneak thief if he left it in his room, and he wouldn't want to risk that. No, odds are he hasn't got the cash with him; he's cached it someplace he thinks it'll be safe, maybe the same place he's left Mike. What we've got to do is scare him into leadin' us to it._

He went looking for Jess and Mort and Marshal Ives. It took almost an hour to round them up, but when they got back to the hotel the clerk told them Murdine was in his room. They tramped up the stairs and Ives knocked on the specified door. "Who is it?" came a man's voice from within.

"Cheyenne City Marshal, Mr. Murdine. Just like to have a few words with you, if you don't mind."

There was a pause, then the door opened, and Murdine stood there in his stocking feet, with his suit-coat off. "Is there some trouble with my property, Marshal? I left a deflated gas balloon in a locked shed not far from here, folded up in its basket—"

"No, as far as I know, your property's fine," Ives told him. "Mind if we come in?"

Murdine stood aside wordlessly, watching them with a mild curiosity; of course he wouldn't know Slim or Jess, and odds were good he would only have sighted Mort at a distance, assuming that he, and not Rix, had been the one to check the town out in preparation for the robbery. "Now," Ives went on, "just to make sure I'm on solid ground here, you _are_ the same 'Professor' Murdine who's associated with the Merrill & McCallum Circus?"

"That's right," Murdine agreed readily. "I made an ascension day before yesterday, in Laramie, and came on ahead in my balloon; doubling back isn't very practical, so I usually do one show at each date, then go on ahead to wait at the next till the rest of the outfit catches up."

Ives nodded. "Well," said he, "a kind of a peculiar thing happened back in Laramie day before yesterday, Professor. Somebody gained entrance to their bank, which was closed in observance of Roundup Day, and blew the safe open with muffled powder. Made off with an unspecified amount in coin and cash, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety thousand dollars. That's what brings Sheriff Corey, here, all this way from his town. And at roughly the same time this robbery occurred, an eight-year-old boy, the legal ward of these two gentlemen, Mr. Sherman and Mr. Harper, also vanished. We have reason to believe that he may have seen the robbers as they left the bank, and been taken along by them to keep him from calling down a pursuit before they could get clean away."

Murdine faced the trio from Laramie, his expression sympathetic but unapprehensive. "Obviously that's a great tragedy for the town," he said, "and a personal one for the boy's guardians. But what does it have to do with me?"

"Plenty, maybe," Jess grated. "Happens I was in Barrett's pasture when you done your show, _Professor. _ Happens I was there a little before you come out. Happens I saw a feller I reckon works for you heave some sacks into your balloon. Heavy sacks, seemed like. One might'a' weighed about what a boy Mike's age would, and a couple others was likely a good bit heavier."

Murdine smiled. "Mr.—Harper, is it?—you have to remember, my flight from Laramie to here took most of the night, and in chilly fall weather. I needed food and drink, a warm coat, a buffalo robe. I also needed to have enough clothing and personal articles at hand to maintain my comfort until the show gets here, which won't be until the day after tomorrow, at the earliest; it had two more performances to give before it could break camp. That's a fair amount of gear, and it's bulky, and it might seem, to an inexperienced watcher at a distance, that it was heavier than was in fact the case, simply because of the awkwardness of trying to get it into the gondola with just one person to do the job. However, if you gentlemen think, as you seem to, that I was in some way associated with these crimes the Marshal has mentioned, I'm quite willing to have this room thoroughly searched."

"So you give your free consent to such a search?" Ives demanded.

Murdine threw out an arm in an expansive gesture. "Please, be my guests. I'll even go out in the corridor to give you more space."

The four men took him at his word. While Murdine stood just outside the door, his arms folded, and watched, they searched every square inch of the place. Slim, at one point, noticed Jess kneeling to examine a pair of Congress gaiters sitting on the rug beside the bed. But they found nothing that any ordinary traveller might not be expected to have in his quarters: shaving kit, clean socks and underwear, a couple of shirts, an extra coat and pair of trousers, and so on.

"Well?" Murdine asked lightly, after a time. "Am I clean, Marshal?"

Jess growled, then, and took a step forward. "Not in my book you ain't, Murdine. You might not have the money on you, but you got a pair of shoes that'd leave a track just like the ones I found outside the bank."

Murdine laughed. "Shoes, Mr. Harper, unlike your rather handsome boots, are mass-produced. I'm afraid that if that's all the evidence you could find, any decent defense attorney would tear your case to shreds in ten minutes."

Jess's lips compressed and he moved as if to make a lunge, but Slim put out an arm and barred his way. "We show folk," Murdine went on easily, "are not unaccustomed to having slanderous charges levelled against us by the inhabitants of the towns through which we pass. It's possible that if I weren't what I am, I'd take personal offense at what seems very close to just such a charge. But as you can't find any trace of the stolen money or the missing boy, there's no way you can prove anything against me. Now I think I've been quite generous in accommodating your suspicions. But you did come in here without a warrant, and it is my room, which I've paid for, and to which I have a right of undisturbed occupancy. I'll ask you to leave."

"_Jess!" _Slim's voice was sharp. "He's right, hardcase. We can't prove a thing. We have to go."

The younger man's head snapped around, and Mort Corey's eyes narrowed. He'd heard Jess use that nickname to Slim many times, but he'd never heard it go the other way: to Slim, Jess was "pard." He knew at once—as Ives couldn't, not being as familiar with these two as he was—that some private message had just passed between them. Slim had something in mind, something he didn't want Murdine to know about.

Slowly a little of the tension drained out of Jess's shoulders. "A'right," he said, his voice raw.

"He was playing with us," Corey said as they reached the lobby.

"Laughin' at us, is what he was doin'," Jess added. He looked at his best friend. "Only reason I didn't draw on him was what you said, Slim. You got somethin' cookin', but what is it?"

"I never thought he'd have the cash with him, and Mike still less, just like you said last night," the rancher told him. "But he knows now that we suspect him. And he especially knows that we have, or think we have, physical evidence to bring into court against him—"

"The shoes," Ives interrupted.

"That's right, the shoes. Now he might just go out, buy a new pair, and dispose of the old ones. All he'd have to do is stuff 'em in somebody's trash barrel, and in a town the size of this one we'd never be able to find 'em till long after he was out of the Territory. But he also knows that Jess and I have a personal stake in this, and my bet is he's travelled enough in the West to know that there are plenty of excuses one man can make to draw on another. I think—I hope—he may just decide to cut his losses and get out while the getting's good. Odds are he already has some system worked out to re-connect with his daughter and that Rix in case somethin' doesn't go the way it's supposed to. All he needs is to get the money from wherever he's hidden it and get over the Line into Colorado; after that he can take his time."

"So... we watch him," Mort guessed. "Am I right?"

"That's just what we do. We watch him," Slim agreed.

**SR**

Across the street from Murdine's hotel was a dry-goods-and-notions store, two storeys high, with a low false front; Slim took up a position behind it. Out back was the usual small stable for guests' horses; Jess, hidden in its loft, could keep an eye on the building's rear exit. Mort got their horses from the barn where they'd left them and found a quiet alley not far away where he could hold them and wait.

About an hour after their visit, Murdine emerged, walked casually down to the nearest restaurant, and apparently ate his dinner; Slim moved with him, found a ladder up to the roof of the building opposite, and settled in a spot where he could watch the front door. Presently Murdine came out again and continued down the street, turning in at a livery stable. _This is it, _thought Slim, who by that time was in an alley across the way; but it wasn't—Murdine came out again after about ten minutes, on foot, and returned to his hotel. Still, his visit was enough to convince Slim that something was going to happen, and soon.

He returned to his previous post, and after about half an hour the aeronaut reappeared and strolled in the other direction until he came to the town's principal bank. _He can't be planning a stickup,_ Slim thought, incredulous. _Not alone, without even a horse outside for a getaway._ And in that, he was right. Perhaps fifteen minutes later—no more—Murdine reappeared, this time carrying a small leather bag. Slim watched in amazement. _The eternal gall_ _of the man,_ he thought. _He must've taken a safe-deposit box and tucked some of the loot in it! The last place in the world we'd have thought to look for it. The way he's movin', it's only the paper, but that's still the bulk of the take._

Murdine went back to the hotel, and forty-five minutes or so later, Slim saw Jess appear suddenly beside the building, wave his hat, and take off in the direction of Mort's spot. He wasted no time in getting off the roof and catching up with his friend. Jess and Mort were waiting in the alley, mounted. He swung up onto Alamo. "What's goin' on?" he asked.

"Some feller in overalls and a Mackinaw coat fetched a buckboard to the back door around half an hour ago," Jess reported. "Had a mark on the side of the bed, like livery stables use. Murdine come out just now with his carpetbag and a little satchel and a rolled-up overcoat, throwed 'em in the back and started down the street."

"Toward the depot," Corey said. "But I checked the schedule board. Next train out isn't for a couple of hours."

"Bet you anythin' he's circlin'," Jess speculated. "Not likely he got a sight of us, but like you said, pard, he's like a grizzly, backtrackin' himself."

"Where'd the satchel come from?" Mort asked. "Didn't the clerk say all he checked in with was a carpetbag?"

Slim described Murdine's latest move as the horses headed down the street at a rapid trot. "I'm wonderin', now, if it wasn't more than just a way to keep his loot safe from sneak thieves—and searches like ours," he said. "I'm wonderin' if maybe his plan wasn't to take this bank the same way he took ours, as soon as the circus got here and he could make another ascent. Goin' in to arrange for a box would give him a perfect chance to get a look at the vault and find out where the back door is. Only we scared him; he figures that Ives might be suspicious enough, now, to keep an eye on him, at least. He's decided to cut his losses, pick up the coin and head for the border."

As they cleared the fringe of buildings at the edge of the town, a low-profiled vehicle behind two horses was visible about three-quarters of a mile down the road, following the railroad track. Jess squinted, shading his eyes with his hand. "I reckon that's Murdine's buckboard," he said. "It's painted blue, like that one. Can't make out the mark at this distance, is all."

"We'll have to take the chance," Slim declared.

"Turn off," said Jess, swinging Traveller to the right. "Folks don't expect to be followed or trailed sideways. If they watch, it's their back trail, not the country parallel to the way they're goin'."

The buckboard, now about a mile away, swung in a slow arc, circling around the outskirts of Cheyenne. The trio kept even with it, well off, as it moved west, then northwest, back to the same road they had followed themselves the evening before. It took that road for two or three miles, then crossed the ditch on the north shoulder and headed across the open prairie. "This has to be it," Slim said. "He's goin' to fetch the coin, and Mike."

"Gettin' late," Jess observed. "Even if he was to let Mike go, it'd take two, maybe three hours for him to find his way to town over this kind of ground on foot in gatherin' dark—supposin' he even made the try. That'd give Murdine more'n enough time to get into Colorado and be safe. It's gonna be a fine night; he could take his directions from the stars and cut off across the prairie, due south, trust his team to let him know if he's about to fall into a ravine or somethin'."

Ahead and to the right, the buckboard skirted a low hogback, vanishing around the tail of it. The three checked, then, by unspoken agreement, went straight on, to the foot of the lift. Jess, the lightest weight, dropped out of his saddle and scrambled quickly up the side of it. He flattened himself as he neared the crest, pulling off his hat, and lay there, very still, for a long ten minutes, then turned and descended again. "There's a little soddie on the edge of a wash about a mile the other side," he reported. "No sign of stock or recent crops, so most likely it's a failed homestead. Murdine just pulled the buckboard around to the side of it. My bet, the coin's hid in the wash somewheres, and Mike's in the house."

"At least Murdine found him a sheltered place," Slim murmured.

"How far does this wash run, Jess?" Mort asked.

"Don't go more'n another hundred yards west, I reckon," the Texan replied. "But east? Far's I can see."

The lawman nodded. "All right. You circle right, block the down end of it so he can't get out that way. Slim and I'll ride straight in. If luck's with us, he won't know we're there till he comes out with the money, and we'll be able to keep him from getting to Mike."

But luck wasn't with them. Apparently Murdine's hiding place had been both very close to the house and very simple, and recovering the money had involved only moving a log or a rock, no digging. He was just coming back around the end of the soddie, dragging a heavy sack, as they came into view, and perhaps he recognized Slim's height and the silver band on his good Sunday hat, for he took one look at them, dropped the sack, and broke for the cabin door. They spurred, but too late: he was through, slamming it behind him. They pulled up, and after a minute the door slowly edged open. "Sherman? Is that you?"

Slim shot a look at the sheriff, got a nod, and responded. "It's me, Murdine, and Sheriff Corey. We've been watchin' you all day. We know you've got the bank money. You'd better come on out and give up."

"Oh, I'll come out," came the reply, "but give up? No, I don't think so. You see, I've got something here that belongs to you." The door opened farther, and the aeronaut emerged slowly, a Root's Patent Model Colt in one hand, the other arm wrapped around Mike's waist, holding the boy before him as a shield. Mike's hands were tied behind him, though his feet were free; he was kicking and writhing, trying to break loose, but the strength of a grown man was too much for him.

Slim's breath hitched in his throat. "Mike! Mike, are you okay?"

The boy stopped fighting immediately. "Slim? Slim! I told him you'd find me! I told him you'd never stop lookin', but he didn't believe me!"

"Are you hurt, Mike?" the rancher repeated.

"No, I'm okay," his ward assured him. "He left me a buffalo robe so I'd be warm, and he gave me some food after he landed the balloon here, and brought more out last night, and again this morning."

The air shuddered out of Slim in a slow sigh of relief. "Murdine, I'm obliged to you for takin' care of him. But you can't get away, so you'd better let him go."

"No, not yet," said Murdine— "not quite yet, Sherman. You see, the Colorado line is only ten miles from here. All I have to do is tie the two of you up and take the boy that far with me. I'll leave him there, and you can take him home, but the money is coming with me, in the buckboard." He lifted the Root's to bear on Mike's temple. "Now, both of you, just take your sixguns out of the holsters, two fingers only, and drop them on the ground."

"You're not a murderer, Murdine," Slim argued. "You wouldn't have cared enough to provide Mike with food and a buffalo robe, if you were. You wouldn't even have come up with this robbery scheme, if you didn't care about other people's lives; you'd just be a common hit-and-run stick-up artist. Let him go. Right now, the worst you can be charged with is possession of stolen goods. It's only five years, less with good behavior. I'll give you my promise that Jess won't testify about your shoe prints, and Mike won't tell about you kidnapping him. Let him go, Murdine, before you get in worse trouble."

"A man will risk a lot of trouble, for ninety thousand dollars plus," Murdine observed, inching across the soddie's façade toward the buckboard. "Guns, Sherman, now."

"We can't risk it, Slim," Corey said, low-voiced. "You may be right about him, but you may not. We can't take the chance, not on Mike's life."

Slim hesitated, then nodded. "You're right, Mort. All right, Murdine, here they come." A moment later the two Colts thudded into the grass.

"Now," Murdine went on, "get off your horses and go inside. You'll tie the sheriff up, Sherman, and then I'll tie you. I'll leave your mounts here. You'll work yourselves free in a couple of hours, but by then I'll be over the Line."

A lean form in a black hat and silver-trimmed boots appeared silently around the end of the soddie, and a Winchester clashed sharply to full cock. "No you won't, Murdine."

Murdine almost—not quite—turned his head. "Harper?"

"Yeah," the Texan said, his voice flat and gritty. "I got a rifle dead center on your back, so you drop Mike and that gun before I forget I'm supposed to be a deputy. 'Cause nobody does hurt to my family, not any more. And you can take _that_ to the bank."

Slim didn't dare speak. Was Jess bluffing? Even a Henry .44, which threw its bullets with a powder charge of 25 grains each, could send them through seven inches of pine, not to speak of a human body—or two; Jess's Winchester had sixty per cent more power than that. If he fired, at that range, the slug could go right through Murdine and into Mike. Would he take that chance, or was he just too coldly furious to even think about the possibility? For two or three minutes it seemed that nothing in the world moved or breathed, including Slim himself.

Then Murdine lifted his right hand, letting the Root's turn on his finger, and gave it a flip backward, toward Jess. He loosed his arm, and Mike dropped to the ground, scrambled up, and dodged around him, running to the Texan. Jess slipped his supporting left hand out from under the rifle, half knelt, and caught the boy in the crook of his arm, sweeping him up astride his hip, holding the Winchester one-handed on the disarmed aeronaut. "You okay, Tiger?"

" 'M fine, Jess." Mike had his face buried against his hero's shoulder, muffling any uncertainty in his tone. "I knew you'd come, you'n'Slim..."

"That's right, Tiger." Jess's gravelly voice was a little uneven, but his eyes remained fixed on Murdine's back as Slim and Corey quickly dismounted and recovered their guns, moving forward to enfold the man in a web of firearms. "And we always will." As the sheriff slapped a hand down on Murdine's shoulder, spun him into the soddie wall, and began searching him for further surprises, while Slim stood back about ten feet to provide cover, the ex-gunslinger took the rifle off cock, laid it in the bed of the buckboard, and reached into his pocket for his jackknife, teasing out the long blade to cut Mike's bonds. "We always will," he repeated. "Now, let's take you home to Daisy, huh?"

**SR**

It wasn't quite as simple as all that. An exchange of telegrams with Bob Wilson in Laramie brought a request that the bank in Cheyenne be asked to keep the recovered coin until a claim could be filed with the insurance company to replace the ruined safe; the paper could be kept in the small one in his private office, but there wasn't room enough for the gold and silver. Slim and Jess and Corey had to stay in Cheyenne until the show arrived; Marshal Ives made the actual arrest of Adrielle Murdine and Rix, but the three from Laramie had to talk to a judge about getting them, and Murdine himself, returned to the scene of the crime. And meanwhile messages began coming in from Mort's deputy about a string of very similar bank robberies—a good twenty from first to last—in the major towns along the circus's back trail, and Rix began talking like a trained parrot, hoping to make a deal. A secret compartment under the Murdines' wagon seat proved to contain a collection of drafts on some thirty or forty different banks from New Mexico north—small banks, mostly—and on Wells Fargo: Murdine had been turning his ill-gotten gains into this handily portable and easily concealable form all along. In the end, the amounts recovered came to over a million dollars, though the Laramie haul, thanks to its timing, had been the richest. There would almost certainly be at least a few rewards, though it would take time to get all the recovered money returned to its proper owners and tallied. _It may be an even_ _better Christmas than I'd thought,_ Slim told himself. _And then in the spring we can start lookin' for more breeding mares, and maybe two or three more good bulls, and even buy some more range._

The day after the Sherman Ranch family was reunited, a clamor of guitar, banjo, and very loud drum brought them running to the ranchhouse door to see Dr. Jerathmael Pennybuck's Miraculous Cures from the Mysterious East rolling into the yard behind its eight big Belgian horses, with Shadrach at the reins, Melly playing the guitar, Paul Kennedy pounding the drum, and the doctor himself flogging the banjo with great verve. It drew up, Shadrach and Kennedy leaped down to unhitch the trail unit, turn it around, and drop the side panel, while the doctor handed Melly down, both saluting their astonished hosts with low bows. "My daughter," Pennybuck explained, "promised our dear lad Jess, who was once a valued member of our troupe, that his family would be granted the unparalleled opportunity to view our performance—and without any attempt at profit from it. We are here to make good that promise." And make good they did, with card tricks and magic and sleight of hand, Shadrach's juggling, performing dogs and cats, a marvelously complex puppet-shadow-play, Melly's singing, the trained horse Avalon (a darkly dappled gray with glossy black stockings and muzzle), and an exhibition of "Willie Blue"'s trick- and sharpshooting. Mike begged Jess to show off his own skills in a match, and Jess somewhat reluctantly allowed himself to be persuaded; in the end the two scored so close to each other that it was impossible to call a winner.

Naturally Daisy wouldn't hear of the troupe moving on without sharing a meal. Afterward Jess took Melly out for a tour of the place, and to thank her for being willing to forgive his "jumpin' to conclusions." "There wasn't anything to forgive," she said. "You did exactly what you should have done, given the circumstances and what you knew about us. Even Pa understood that, once he had time to think about it; that's why he agreed to come do this special show for you. They're really very lucky to have you, Jess. I hope they know that."

"I'm lucky to have them," he replied. "Way luckier'n I deserve, and I know it."

"No," she said, smiling. "This is just what you _have_ deserved, all along. A home, and people to care about you. We'd have tried, but we're rovers. You need someplace to put down roots. Maybe you don't really know it yet, but it's the thing you've been looking for, ever since Texas."

"Where are you going next, Dr. Pennybuck?" Daisy was asking as they strolled back to the house.

"Cheyenne, Mrs. Cooper. Like the circus, we must board the cars and retreat to more hospitable climes for the winter season. I've a sister in Little Rock—she assumed Melly's care while I was paying my debt to society, and she puts us up annually."

"You stop by on your way through next year," Slim invited, shaking hands all around. "Any of Jess's friends—his _real_ friends—are always welcome on this ranch."

Melly gave Daisy and Mike parting hugs, then stood on her tiptoes to kiss Slim's cheek. "Take good care of him," she whispered in the rancher's ear.

"Always," Slim promised. He handed her up onto the wagon's high seat while Shadrach and Kennedy hooked on the trail unit again, then climbed up themselves next to the waiting girl and her father. Shadrach picked up the reins and called to the Belgians, and they leaned into their collars and pulled. The big wagon eased into motion, followed by Avalon on his lead, Kennedy's buckskin Choctaw likewise, and the trail unit loud with the farewell barking of the dogs. "Guess that's the end of the fall season," Slim added, as they watched it ascending the stage road.

"Not the end of a friendship, I'm happy to say," Daisy observed, twinkling at her "middle boy." "You don't suppose that lovely girl could ever be persuaded to settle down, do you, Jess?"

"Uh—no," said Jess, rather more bluntly and positively than he had perhaps intended. "Anyhow, I ain't lookin' to fight Kennedy for her, he's too dang good with that sixgun."

"Aw, you were just bein' polite, weren't you, Jess?" Mike protested. "Like how when I visit my friends in town their mas always tell 'em I have to get first pick of everything on account of bein' a guest?"

Slim chuckled. "No, Mike, he's just bein' girl-shy again, as usual. You know what he always says—there are only two things he's afraid of: a decent woman, and bein' left afoot."

"Well, it's true," his friend retorted.

"Yeah, sure it is."

"C'mon, Slim—"

"Got three words for you, pard. Celie, and twenty dollars."

"That was a bet!"

"Ri-i-i-ight," Slim drawled, smiling.

"Aw, you!" Jess snorted in disgust. "Can't you ever leave a man be? You're gettin' bad as Daisy!"

"Melly told me to take care of you," Slim replied, "and one of the best ways of doin' that might be to get you a bigger stake in stayin' put."

"Not that way! And not with Celie!"

"All right," Slim agreed, still smiling, "whatever you say. Come on, it's gettin' late, let's see to the stock."

**Note:** There really was a "wonderful leaping cat Spot" who jumped through "a hoop of fire," and was advertised as such by one of the many medicine shows plying the roads of 19th-Century America!


End file.
